Mikio Hasui talks about his photography in an interview with FvF.
Words, they’re difficult. I’m not a good writer. When I write, I feel like my thoughts get whittled down, smaller and smaller. With a photograph that I think is beautiful, eight out of ten people will also think it’s beautiful. The other two people may think it’s sad, and that’s okay by me. With words, beautiful is beautiful. You don’t read the word ‘beautiful’ as ‘sad’. The reaction people have to my photos can be unexpected, and I like that.
And:
When I went to shoot these images, it just happened to be foggy. I was thinking, I can’t shoot today. I couldn’t see anything, so I waited a bit for the fog to clear. When the fog lifted for one moment, I saw the mountain, covered with trees in bright autumnal colors. But I was thinking that if the fog wasn’t there, and it was just a mountain covered in autumnal leaves, the experience and shot would’ve been pretty boring. It was beautiful because it was hidden, and because it was only revealed for that one moment, just that one part of the mountain.
I felt like it was a metaphor for my life. I’m living in a fog. Even though I’m facing forward, I’m not sure which direction that is. I don’t belong to or work at a company, and I live life day by day. Sometimes I’m like, is this all right? Is this okay? But that’s the kind of thing everyone thinks about. I wonder what’s ahead. Work, marriage, kids – everyone has those questions. But when you’re inside the fog, when everything is foggy, you can’t see (what’s ahead of you). When that fog lifts and you can see even a bit of something, you’ve got to believe in what you just saw, right? When the fog lifts, there’s that mountain covered in trees with beautiful leaves and colors – you can’t see it right now, but it’s there. You’ve got to believe in that.