As well as reflecting their shared family life, for Seiichi, many of the photographs reveal Christine\u2019s inner-self, her personality and demeanour, even the way she held her camera. \u201cShe never aggressively imposed herself on her subjects. Instead, she always maintained a position of quiet restraint, observing from a slight distance,\u201d says Seiichi. \u201cShe held the camera gently, always keeping the same calm and respectful distance from the people or things she chose to photograph.\u201d Seiichi adds that Christine would often take two photographs consecutively, seemingly haunted by \u201ca lingering uncertainty\u201d. There was one exception to this predisposition, however; when Christine captured Seiichi asleep. Here, Christine used a macro lens, leaving only a few centimetres between the lens and Seiichi\u2019s face. Seiichi recalls it was \u201calmost as if she were conducting a CT scan\u201d. He continues: \u201cIt felt as though she was trying to peer into my mind and understand what I was thinking \u2013 trying to capture something invisible inside me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what it felt like, as a photographer, to have the camera turned on himself, Seiichi says that whilst it hasn\u2019t happened often, he has no particular aversion to it. \u201cThat was especially true when Christine photographed me,\u201d Seiichi continues. \u201cShe never once insisted on taking pictures or asked to do so \u2013 it always happened naturally and quietly, as part of the flow of the moment.\u201d The process was simple, Seiichi would stop, look at Christine, with her never \u2013 bar once asking him to remove his glasses \u2013 requesting his changing position or expression. Much like the photos of him sleeping, Seiichi saw this creative process as a cipher for their relationship, a new means for connection and communication. \u201cThe photographs themselves weren\u2019t what mattered,\u201d Seiichi says. \u201cRather, I believe we were engaging in a kind of silent conversation \u2013 brief as it may have been \u2013 through the act of photographing one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 1983, Christine had all but stopped taking photographs due to increasing ill-mental health, and even when in 1985 she did briefly pick her camera back up, Seiichi says that she no longer turned her camera on him. \u201cIn other words, she had stopped engaging in that silent dialogue with me,\u201d he says. Christine Furuya-G\u00f6ssler Photographs (1978\u20131985) is a moving testament to the self actualising power of creation, and the traces of existence that the oft-photographed Christine left behind, with her own mind, her own eyes and her own hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As well as reflecting their shared family life, for Seiichi, many of the photographs reveal Christine\u2019s inner-self, her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-124270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}