From
1998 to 1999, I spent nine months in Taiwan and Japan. The focus of my
project was the urban landscape of these rapidly industrialized nations,
especially the cities of Taipei and Tokyo. Up to that point, photography
had always been a source of pleasure for me, but during the five months
I lived in Taipei, I often felt depressed and lonely. I was oppressed
by the dense crowds, polluted air, and pervasive consumerism. I would
have remembered many of my wanderings through the congested streets as
dreams if not for the photographs I was taking. In that mindset, my original
objectives began to seem remote and too academic. I challenged myself
instead to try to capture in photographs what I felt to be a collective
spiritual malaise. These photographs, and more optimistic ones made the
following spring in Japan, comprise part of a continuing project.
From
1998 to 1999, I spent nine months in Taiwan and Japan. The focus of my
project was the urban landscape of these rapidly industrialized nations,
especially the cities of Taipei and Tokyo. Up to that point, photography
had always been a source of pleasure for me, but during the five months
I lived in Taipei, I often felt depressed and lonely. I was oppressed
by the dense crowds, polluted air, and pervasive consumerism. I would
have remembered many of my wanderings through the congested streets as
dreams if not for the photographs I was taking. In that mindset, my original
objectives began to seem remote and too academic. I challenged myself
instead to try to capture in photographs what I felt to be a collective
spiritual malaise. These photographs, and more optimistic ones made the
following spring in Japan, comprise part of a continuing project.