Masahiro Hiroike

Hiroike is a Japanese photographer born in 1962. In 2020, he was selected as a finalist at the Sony World Photography Awards, the world's largest photo contest, and began his career as a photographer. In 2023, he was selected by Darius Himes, international director of photography at the auction house Christie's, as the winner of the Dutch photo contest "LensCulture Critics' Choice". He has also held solo exhibitions organized by museums in Japan and Poland. In 2024, he made his debut as an artist for the 90-year-old "Yamakei Calendar," becoming one of Japan's leading landscape photographers.

He has been in contact with nature since childhood, and has enjoyed outdoor sports such as stream fishing, cycling, and mountain climbing as a hobby. He encountered computers at the Faculty of Engineering at Hiroshima University, and has been involved in the development of industrial robots, CAD, and WEB systems as a systems engineer for 30 years. He began taking photographs in earnest after developing many photo display programs.

He lives with nature and has a reverence for nature, expressing Japan's rare nature, landscapes, and culture through the medium of photography. Inspired by Japanese paintings such as sumi-e, he confronts them with the unique Japanese aesthetic sense of "transition" and "wabi-sabi." He also explores "what is photography" and "what is beauty" technically and philosophically from an engineer's perspective. He believes that spreading the Japanese aesthetic sense of reverence for nature, harmony, silence, and ambiguity will help bring back tranquility to a chaotic world.

His focus in photography is on "time" and "randomness." He sees photography as a "device that converts four-dimensional space (three-dimensional space + time) into a two-dimensional plane," and is researching the relationship between time and photography. He creates abstract works by incorporating the movements of living creatures through time and the heartbeat of the human body through ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). This is surrealism through photography that uses consciousness, unconsciousness, and randomness.

He is also committed to taking high-definition photographs. Not only does he take photos with a high-resolution digital camera, but he also puts more effort into printing than anyone else to fully utilize the images. He has a print studio at home, where he prints 2m x 1m and processes them with Alpolic, using a printer that can handle 1118mm wide roll paper and a panel pasting machine that can handle 1600mm wide paper. He also produces sturdy aluminum frames that he designed himself.

[Awards]

2020 Sony World Photography Awards 2020　Professional “Natural World and Wildlife” 2nd

2023 LensCulture Critics‘ Choice 2023　winner (Selected by Christie’s Darius Himes)

Please see [AWARD] for details.

【exhibition】

2021 Solo Exhibition Yonago City Museum of Art "QUEST-Quest for Beauty"

2023 Special exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Jelenia Gora, Poland

Please see [EXHIBITION] for details.

[Publishing]

December 2019 Photobook "QUEST Vol. 1" published by Imai Publishing

July 2020 Published the photo book "HIME BOTARU" from Chiisana Imai

[Media Appearance]

July 2022 ~ Chukai Television Broadcasting "Sanin Graphie" 10-minute program x 11 episodes

2020 Saninpedia [Tottori x Working People vol.45]

[judge]

2022, He served as a judge (1 person each from 50 countries) for 7TH 35AWARDS (applications: 174 countries, 124,800 people, 480,500 works).

[Work provided]

From 2022 Provide Belgian digital art frame "ionnyk"

[Ambassador]

From 2020 HAIDA (filter manufacturer)

[Photographic Equipment]

Cameras: SONY α7R4, SONY α7R2, SONY α7R, CANON 6D

Lens: SONY FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS, SONY FE 20mm F1.8 G, SONY FE 14mm F1.8

SIGMA 85mm F1.4 DG DN Art, SIGMA20mm F1.4 DG HSM, SIGMA 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS , TAMRON 28-75mm F / 2.8 Di III RXD

Filter: HAIDA M10 system

廣池　昌弘

廣池は1962年生まれの日本の写真家です。2020年に世界最大のフォトコンテストであるSony World Photography Awardsでファイナリストに選ばれ写真家として活動を開始しました。2023年にはオランダのフォトコンテスト “LensCulture Critics‘ Choice”でWinnerとしてオークションハウス“Christie’s”の写真国際責任者であるDarius Himes氏に選出されました。そして日本とポーランドで美術館主催の個展が開催されています。また2024年に90年の歴史を持つ「ヤマケイカレンダー」の作家としてデビューしました。

彼は幼少期から自然に触れ、渓流釣りやサイクリング、登山などのアウトドアスポーツを趣味としてきました。広島大学工学部ではコンピューターに出会い、システムエンジニアとして産業用ロボットやCAD、WEBシステムの開発に30年携わってきました。そして写真の表示プログラムを数多く開発していたことがきっかけで、本格的に写真撮影を始めるようになりました。

彼は自然と共に生き、自然に畏敬の念を抱いて、世界にも稀な日本の自然や風景、文化を写真というメディアで表現しています。そこには水墨画などの日本画にインスピレーションを受け、「うつろい」や「侘び・寂び」といった日本人独特の美意識で対峙しています。また、「写真とは何か」や「美しさとは何か」をエンジニアの視点で技術的・哲学的に探求しています。そして自然に対する畏敬の念や、調和、静寂、曖昧という日本人の美意識を広めることが、混沌とした世界に静けさを取り戻すことにつながると信じています。

写真の技術で注目しているのは「時間」と「偶然性」です。彼は写真を「4次元空間（3次元の立体空間＋時間）を2次元平面に変換する装置」と捉え、時間と写真の関係について研究しています。そして時間を使う事で生き物の動きを取り入れたり、ICM（Intentional Camera Movement）によって人体の鼓動の動き等を取り入れる事で、抽象的な作品を手がけています。これは意識と無意識、偶然性を用いた写真によるシュルレアリスムです。

彼はまた、高精細な写真を撮る事に拘っています。高解像度のデジタルカメラで撮影する事は勿論、それを十分に発揮するためにプリントに誰よりも力を注いでいます。彼は自宅にプリント工房を持ち、1118ｍｍ幅のロール紙対応のプリンターと1600ｍｍ幅対応のパネル貼り機を導入して、２m x 1m のプリント、アルポリック加工をしています。また自ら設計した丈夫なアルミの額を制作しています。

【受賞歴】