I wrote a short essay for the essay section of "Kurashi no Techo"magazine.
I wrote it while remembering Koga Hirano, a graphic designer who passed away in March 2021.
I wrote it while remembering Koga Hirano, a graphic designer who passed away in March 2021.
About Mr. Koga Hirano
I first met Koga Hirano, a bookbinder and graphic designer, in 2017 when his exhibition was held at Kyoto dddGallery. I was asked to photograph the exhibition.
Mr. Kouga is a legendary bookbinder who has created more than 7,000 book bindings since the early 1960s using his unique drawing style. For me, however, he was a person I admired for his work on the bookbinding of books I devoured in college, such as Kotaro Sawaki's "Midnight Express" and Makoto Shiina's "Fog is Falling on a Melancholy Town".
So I vividly remember meeting him with the feeling of looking up to him as if I were saying, "So this is the Koga Hirano?" He had a white beard, wore round glasses, and a straw hat.
"Are you a freelancer?"
"Yes, I am."
"It must be hard being a freelance photographer."
"It's tough."
As we talked, I carefully took pictures of Mr. Kouga sitting in his chair, one by one. He was calm all the time and even smiled from time to time, but his eyes behind his round glasses were so piercing that I cringed when my eyes met his through the viewfinder.
When I showed him the photo I had just taken on the monitor, he laughed and said, "You've made a good posthumous photo"
Through this experience, I became good friends with Mr. Kouga and his wife Kimiko, and my family visited them in Takamatsu prefecture, where they lived, but Mr. Kouga suddenly passed away on March 22 2021. He was 82 years old. Although I had heard that he was not in good shape, I was still shocked. But I was just as surprised when I saw the obituary in the newspaper. The photo of Mr. Koga was one that I had taken 4 years ago.
It was a black-and-white photo of Mr. Kouga sitting on a chair and staring at me, a photo that I had taken 4 years ago. At the time, Mr. Kouga jokingly said, "You've made a good posthumous photo," but I never thought that the photo would actually be used in this way.
The only thing I can say for sure is that the person standing in the photo is no longer in this world, but that he was once here and looked at me.
This fact seemed to remind me once again that photographs, over time, transform away from their original purpose and often give us unexpected perspectives and meanings.
I stared at Mr. Kouga's image in the square frame for a long time, feeling both sadness that I would never see him again and warmth that we had shared even a small amount of time together.
Mr. Kouga is a legendary bookbinder who has created more than 7,000 book bindings since the early 1960s using his unique drawing style. For me, however, he was a person I admired for his work on the bookbinding of books I devoured in college, such as Kotaro Sawaki's "Midnight Express" and Makoto Shiina's "Fog is Falling on a Melancholy Town".
So I vividly remember meeting him with the feeling of looking up to him as if I were saying, "So this is the Koga Hirano?" He had a white beard, wore round glasses, and a straw hat.
"Are you a freelancer?"
"Yes, I am."
"It must be hard being a freelance photographer."
"It's tough."
As we talked, I carefully took pictures of Mr. Kouga sitting in his chair, one by one. He was calm all the time and even smiled from time to time, but his eyes behind his round glasses were so piercing that I cringed when my eyes met his through the viewfinder.
When I showed him the photo I had just taken on the monitor, he laughed and said, "You've made a good posthumous photo"
Through this experience, I became good friends with Mr. Kouga and his wife Kimiko, and my family visited them in Takamatsu prefecture, where they lived, but Mr. Kouga suddenly passed away on March 22 2021. He was 82 years old. Although I had heard that he was not in good shape, I was still shocked. But I was just as surprised when I saw the obituary in the newspaper. The photo of Mr. Koga was one that I had taken 4 years ago.
It was a black-and-white photo of Mr. Kouga sitting on a chair and staring at me, a photo that I had taken 4 years ago. At the time, Mr. Kouga jokingly said, "You've made a good posthumous photo," but I never thought that the photo would actually be used in this way.
The only thing I can say for sure is that the person standing in the photo is no longer in this world, but that he was once here and looked at me.
This fact seemed to remind me once again that photographs, over time, transform away from their original purpose and often give us unexpected perspectives and meanings.
I stared at Mr. Kouga's image in the square frame for a long time, feeling both sadness that I would never see him again and warmth that we had shared even a small amount of time together.
