In Ihrer Fotoserie „New Reading Portraits“ zeigt die Fotografin Mami Kiyoshi die Porträtierten mit nur einem Foto, das alles enthalten soll, was deren Leben am besten repräsentiert. Die Geschichten, die die so entstandenen Fotos über die Porträtierten erzählen, wirken wie Biografien.
Mami Kiyoshi über ihre New Reading Portraits:
I am interested in “history”. It is always told by someone, sometimes it is a myth, a story or an anecdote. Photography allows me to sound out the personalities and their environments and recreate stories. I try to make models look like the Buddhas, the primitive gods or heroes.
I realize a project “New Reading Portraits” since 2003. This project is a portrait of society through personal stories. I photograph a variety of people who respond to my ad on the internet, on a poster, etc.. I photograph them at home or at work. I am interested in the person and his life. Before the shooting, I communicate and discover their world.
-What are they doing in life?
-In what parts do they live?
-What are his passions?
After these exchanges and dialogues, I compose the picture. I amplify these stories with my sensitivity and my imagination. I explain their inside in a picture with objects visible. This project is not only private but also public, because I would like to see a multitude of lives in the 21st century and offer a work to discover the diversity of people in the 21st century. For that, over time, this work becomes a set of representative pictures to discover the life and diversity of the people of that time.
Mami Kiyoshi