Simply standing beautifully upright – The Autumn Classic Photo Discovery Day (Sponichi 2017.10.08 Nagakubo column)
A light-hearted one, Nagakubo-san’s column today gushes over the beauty of Hanyu simply standing before the start of Ballade. His bio, which he changes up each time to fit the theme, is a yell :P - gladi
Translated by gladi. Feel free to repost with credit. Photo by Yoshiki Kokaito. Original: http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2017/10/08/kiji/20171007s00079000311000c.html
【Nagakubo Yutaka – May I take a picture?】
It may seem to be a photo, merely, of a standing pose. So, if I were to venture an opinion. Of how difficult it is to simply stand beautifully. It’s not that the muscles are relaxed. It is beauty precisely for the tension and pull from the focal point in the lower abdomen until the very tips of the fingers and toes. Looking with an intense gaze, he is neither an aikido expert nor a skilled stage actor. He is a 22-year-old figure skater.
Before long, Zimerman’s piano creeps in, and he closes his eyes to the timing of the melody.
Thus, Ballade No.1 begins.
× × ×
Quite some time has passed, but I was finally done looking through the photo data that photographer, Yoshiki Kokaito, brought back. It’s not that I was trying to assess his work process. It’s just that I was curious as to how he’d done his shots, since it’s his first time to see Hanyu-senshu’s Ballade No.1. Especially starting from the combo jump until the last steps. Probably frantic in order to follow his dynamic motions that almost seem to jump out from the viewfinder, I think focus, composition, and so forth were quite unrealistic. I was also the same, I thought with a smirk as I booted up the image inspection software.
Same as always, I was advancing through the images with repeated clicks, but all of a sudden, my hand stopped at [Hanyu’s] starting position. That was different from his performances in the 2015-16 season, as well as this year’s Fantasy on Ice in Makuhari. I was certain that up until Makuhari, he’d tilted his head towards the lower left with his eyes closed. But in fact, in this event, he faces straight ahead with a strong stare. And then, this standing posture.
It was more than 30 years ago. They had us undergo intensive training on “dish development” in the darkroom. Literally, to fill a dish with developing solution and fixing solution, and from 36-exposure rolls of film, splicing out, with scissors, about 4 segments that you believe to have captured the essential scenes, and developing them. In a world where, right before the deadline, every minute and every second counts, if a photo that fits the purpose surfaces, thereupon it’s good. The other 32 segments aren’t ever looked back upon.
The modern-day photographer, who is pressed to “upload to the net quickly, somehow!” is also no different from [those in] the dish-development era. If it were the SP, they segment their 2m40s-long memory, only expanding in view on the computer those shots from the scene they’ve decided upon, going back and forth on 2 to 3 shots before and after, before sending it off. What is different from the dish-development era is that there are no worries about cutting the decisive moment out with scissors, and there is somewhat time to re-examine the other cuts as well.
The spread that day went to a photo of [Hanyu] post-combo jump, when he spread his arms and turned his upper body away. Kokaito, the editors, and I were in agreement about that. But, buried amongst the photo data, I ended up coming across this standing posture. I guess the editors disliked this photo because it is [easily] ruined even by a single character covering the white parts of the rink. But, a form clad in the prediction of a clean performance––this was, for sure, a great photo. There is no way we can leave it gathering dust inside a hard drive for archival purposes.
If a skater’s performance is a unique encounter (ichigo ichie), then photos are also the case. A camera position to capture this standing posture and his gaze from right in front, and this current season––this setup is no longer. Dear rivals, our Kokaito did quite well, didn’t he? I trained him! Not.
(Head of photography department)
◆Yutaka Nagakubo, born in 1962. Telling about Zimerman to a 55-year-old with classmates who were driven to “crime” when he said that, “Hey, Shingo Yuki in Judo Ichokusen can play the piano with his feet!” is impossible. Plus, that––was an organ.
