Himi refers to the town of Himi in Toyama Prefecture where I was born and raised. My family and relatives live there. It is the kind of rural town with sea and mountains, a fishing port and rice paddies, and a stretches of shopping arcades with shuttered storefronts and large retail outlets along the arterial roads.

It felt quite carefree, back when I left this place for college, as this is the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else. Ever since then, I have made my home in the city. At the Bon holidays and for the New Year's, or when someone has passed away, I return to a home that seems at once dull and bustling. Still, this being the place where I once learned to eat, drink, talk and get on with people, I have a fondness for it. It may not be an assertive kind of affection, but there is no escaping something so deeply absorbed in my being. The pictures I take, and the choices I make according to this perspective of mine, have all been fundamentally shaped by this family, society and climate. This has also been an inquiry into whether it is possible to objectively capture people who are so intimate and places that are so familiar, yet from my standpoint I am incapable of judging its success or failure.

What sort of place is the countryside, then? Recently l've come to see the countryside as the sort of place where you find a hut standing beside a rice paddy. Compared to the city, the country has its own very unique and different allure, or perhaps I find this to be so from being subtly older. Or perhaps it has to do with the spirit of the age in which we live. And perhaps it is for the same reasons that I find the mysteries of family and marriage to be deepening for me.

To all my aunts and uncles who kept watch over me over the years, to my father, my mother, my big brother, and my lovable niece, I am grateful.

​

​

​