If You Remember Me

“If You Remember Me” is a portrait series that records the people I encountered while traveling .

While walking down the street, I thought people and dogs resemble like parents and children. At a convenience store I went into to buy pudding, the clerk spoke fluent English, and their name tag read “シャイン” (Shine).

A brief conversation with a stranger, another outsider, but not quite like me. At an izakaya, someone said “kiyotsukede” (Take care) as a goodbye, and as I walked back to my accommodation, I felt like I was on the same road I used to walk home on with a friend in my early twenties.

While talking with strangers, there are moments when their story spreads across their face.
When I face those raw expressions, I  want to take a photo. Maybe I just wanted to hold onto it a little longer.

the conversation, their face, voice, the weather, the air, even the scent of that day.

I probably won’t be able to meet most of them again. But sometimes, a very brief moment of truth flashes across a person’s face. If I’m lucky, that moment stays in the photograph.

This project is a portrait series, but also my travel diary, and a record of the emotions I shared with people in passing conversations. What these encounters will mean to me will slowly become clear over time. Because I believe they will show me what truly remains.

I’ll continue to meet people and talk with them, recording it in photographs and writing.
This is how how I’ve come to speak through photographs