Takahiro Kaneyama

Bio: Takahiro Kaneyama began his career in photography in 2003 while enrolled at International Center of Photography.  He has delved into several long-term projects: While Leaves Are Falling.., SHUMAFURA, and other on-going projects.

Published in major magazines, his work has earned international recognition, garnering 2013 Tokyo International Photography Competition Juror’s Choice award, Recruit’s Guardian Garden Hitotsubo-ten Award (Japan), and 2000 Fujifilm/Fuji Photo Salon’s Rookie Of The Year/New Face Award (Japan).  His photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world.

I was raised by four women: mother, grandmother, and two aunts who have never been married.  My mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a teenager.  She became a totally different person overnight.  It almost seemed as if

the history of her life had been erased.

Most of these pictures are made on short trips around Japan with my mother and her two sisters.  Many of our visits are to places my mother and aunts have wanted to see since they were young.  What we’re trying to do is to make up for memories we never had.  I never thought my family would grow older; it seemed to exist in a time-less place.  For me, these photographs are a way of dealing with that.  But they also help me to accept the changes that have taken place, and those that are yet to come.