Nearly three years after I moved to the countryside beside the Sotobo rail line, I found while driving around the east and south parts of Chiba prefecture, that some of the sightseeing spots I used to visit as a tourist are now within the scope of my everyday life.
When I am traveling, I wonder about the history of and literature based upon the place I am visiting. When I live near such places on which history and novels were written however, I am barely reminded of what I used to read about these areas. Come to think of it, it is quite fascinating that I live very close to the settings of historical legends and famous fictional stories. This is the origin of the concept of Boso Fudoki.
Yet, I found myself more intrigued by the scenes on the way to those places. A beach with foaming waves, grasses waving in the wind, national roads in the afternoon–––these mundane sights that underlie the narratives appeared particularly brilliant. Perhaps, the seeds of “tales” lie in these ordinary scenes.
Fifteen years have passed since I first exhibited these photographs in 2000. Because they are all Polaroids, the colors are fading year after year and I will have to face a time when all of the images are gone from the surface of the prints. Just when I had been thinking about the future of this work, I received a proposal to make a book out of the photographs. Imagine how happy I am to be able to make the images survive in the form of this book. - ISSEI SUDA
