Image: Nicolas Guerin
“Rather than shooting something that looks like a professional photograph, I want my work to feel intimate, like someone in the subject’s inner circle shot them.” (...) “Shooting all those people taught me so much about the essence of human beings.”
“The people in front of you, the subjects, they’re far more extraordinary than you. They all have their own charms. But often they themselves aren’t even aware of their charms, so you have to discover it and present it to them, like, “This is it!” They’re radiating all this aura, so your job is to pump up that aura even more and give it back to them by capturing it on film. That’s how I approach my work.”
"To contemplate the works by Araki is an ideal opportunity to delve into the world of one of the classics of the oriental photography. (...) Throughout his works, the artist displays a very personal view on the world of the female erotism, on the subtle and veiled registers of the sensuality and the pleasure. The scent of an erotism, however, to which our western senses only can aspire in part, with a certain gesture of strangeness and lack of knowledge."
Francisco Carpio, Blanco y Negro Cultural - ABC
“To live is to go through a sentimental journey, and to him, to photograph is to go through a sentimental journey,” Yoko once said of Araki’s inseparable relationship with his medium. (...) The inextricable relationship between life and death is a recurring subject of fascination for the photographer. (...) From documenting everyday street scenes, to youth subcultures with his characteristic touch of sensuality, Araki’s birthplace of Tokyo has proved a source of endless inspiration and space for him to reflect on emotional states at particular moments in time.
Charmaine Li, AnOther, 21 June 2016
