Projects: New York's Chance Encounters

Life is boring without encounters. We might be easily depressed without them. Indeed encounters are critical part of life, as life per se has often dark sides. If we really open eyes, there exist myriad encounters that impress us — from beauty, wonder, mystery, even to fear.  

Though it is not always fun, I would like to freeze such moments… because, by doing so, I could further explore myself, as well as examining what humans are and where we are heading in future. 

“New York Chance Encounter” is also my personal series that I started after I was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. Although I was luckily healed, I had the continuous fear of the recurrence, still now. So this photo essay could be part of therapy as well. Many of the images are metaphors about myself. 

I, before I started this project, thought this series would become very dark. However, it didn’t. It is simply because life is somehow complicated as it is very connected with chance encounters. Life is in the diverse world, through which people and nature naturally tend to fight together to overcome the obstacles that hinder them.  

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Nearly all of the images are photographed purposely by iPhone with the digital pre-setting, logically the same process as the film photography and photo-documentary, that gave me a sense of a new challenge and energy. 

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Q. Sakamaki — New York, Aug. 2018