Photographer Takuma Suda has made it his life's work to photograph the Asian people he meets around the world. Among them, the one he has been photographing for 17 years is Farashte, a girl he met on a street corner in Iran. Suda's photographs reflect the inner thoughts of her subjects, and I feel that they have a lot to say to us. The website ``KOGEI STANDARD,'' run by Yusuke Shibata of HULS, provides an attractive representation of Suda's vision of craftsmen.

Written by Takuma Suda

I work as a photographer specializing in portrait photography. This year marks 14 years since I became independent. I've been obsessively taking photos until now. My first encounter with photography was when I was in high school. I came across ``Midnight Express'' by Kotaro Sawaki at a bookstore during summer vacation. From the time I started traveling on impulse until I graduated from college, I would jump on a ship or plane on the first day of a long vacation. I traveled for a month or two with just a backpack on my back. About half of my luggage was filled with film, and the purpose of the trip was gradually to take pictures.

During my travels, I gradually became obsessed with photographing people. If your perspective changes, your encounters will change as well. During my last winter break at university, I had an encounter. I found a girl working on the streets of Mashhad, Iran. For some reason, her appearance captivated her and she spoke to her. The girl's name was Farashte, which means angel in Persian. She was seven years old and she was a child of Afghan refugees. From then on, she visited Farashte for two days before leaving the city. Before I knew it, I dreamed of seeing Farashte as an adult.

17 years have passed since then. My friendship with Farashte still continues. At the age of 23, Farashte graduated from university with a scholarship. During that time, I worked as an assistant to a photographer before becoming independent, and photography became my job. I still travel to Iran regularly and continue to take photographs. Photographing Farashte has become a major pillar of my photography life.

Across the far sea. Compared to when I only had a vague image of ``refugees,'' now the people living in Farashte and across the sea definitely exist in my mind as beings with a body temperature.
Currently, I mainly photograph people in Tokyo. At the same time, I also photograph the production areas of Japanese crafts on a website called ``KOGEI STANDARD.'' Photographing this craft, like photographing Farashte, is becoming my life's work.

This site introduces crafts from all over Japan to foreigners living overseas. Mr. Shibata, the creator of "KOGEI STANDARD," wanted to focus on the people who make the crafts and their stories, so he asked me, who specializes in portrait photography, to take the photos. Since then, I have traveled all over Japan and photographed. We listened to the creator's thoughts and got to see their work. I have been trying to capture as much of the expressions on the faces of the people who make the crafts as possible. The feeling of warmth I felt in the crafts I had vaguely used until now had something in common with the feeling I got from traveling in the past.

My goal now is to use photography to convey the charm of people and things far away to as many people as possible, just as I felt. Also, just like I was able to encounter Farashte and crafts, I am looking forward to seeing what further encounters I will have in the future.

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→3. When the sensibilities of Eiko Tanaka, a woodworker and lacquer artist, sublimate into beauty.