The new frontier of Yuji Hamada, who has been questioning what photography is, is to collect "light there" without using film. It all began in 2020 with the Corona Disaster. He will publish "light there," a box-type photo book limited to 200 copies, based on his unprecedented experiment of burning invisible ultraviolet light onto aluminum photosensitive plates.

The book, planned as a "Portable Museum," will include 20 photographic plates and one unused "aluminum photosensitive plate," which will be sent to Yuji Hamada after exposure to be developed and returned to the photographer. Please join us in this project to experience the invisible light around us.

Publisher: Osamu Kushida

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Message from the Photographer

    In 2020, I was experimenting with aluminum plates that react only to ultraviolet light (PS plates) in place of film. The first experiment was conducted at the end of the summer, when the state of emergency was declared due to the new coronavirus and people were not allowed to go out of their homes. I hand-cut an aluminum plate, put the holder loaded with the plate in my camera, and took pictures of Tokyo sunsets. It was important to collect the light that was just there; the visible subject was not important. I faced the invisible ultraviolet light with a mindless focus and waited for an immensely long exposure time. The invisible image that had been burned in over time would only reveal itself during the development process. Feeling pure joy at this, I continued to create thin aluminum sheets that were heated as if they had been exposed to the sun. (Quoted from the photo book "light there")

-Yuji Hamada

Profile

Yuji Hamada
Born in Osaka in 1979, Yuji Hamada graduated from the Department of Photography, Nihon University College of Art in 2003. Based in Tokyo, he has exhibited his works in Japan and abroad. He constructs concepts based on the principles of photography and creates performative works rooted in the various expressive functions of photography through his own memories and coincidences. Recent exhibitions include "Contemplation and Distillation" (Musée Hamaguchi Yozo : Yamasa Collection, 2020), "Close-up Universe: Contemporary Japanese Photography vol. 16" (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2019), and the solo exhibition "Incidence and Reflection" (PGI, 2022). Publications include "photography?end" (magic hour edition, 2022) and "Primal Mountain" (torch press, 2019).