demain - Satoru Watanabe

"‘Demain’ is a word that I learned in Arles last summer; the meaning is ‘tomorrow’. 

I say ‘demain’ and wave my hand to a French friend that I have just made. Both of us, smiling at each other like a child. 

I felt a sense of nostalgia towards the word ‘tomorrow’. 

During my childhood, a day with friends was always concluded with a phrase ‘see you tomorrow’ but, eventually the phrase was replaced by a word ‘good-bye’. Tomorrow was no longer a continuation of today. 

From my deceased mother’s belongings, I found a roll of monochrome negative stored in a paper box. I looked through the film against a light and what I saw there was my family, surrounding a small Japanese style table. Assuming from the setting, it was taken on my younger sister’s Weaning ceremony*.

My father holds my sister on his lap and, my grandmother and I are in the shot which means that this particular shot was taken by my mother. 

Among the photos that looked almost identical, I realized that there is a shot that is heavily tilted to the left. Out of curiosity, I decided to develop the negative and noticed there were my father, sister, grandmother and mother but I was missing. 

The reason for it was because I was the one that released the shutter for this shot, probably for the very first time in my life. My father was 37 years old, my mother 28 and I was still 4. It was one summer from 50 years ago. 

Both my father and mother are much younger than myself today. What was captured in the photo was a time in the history where people believed that tomorrow would be better than today.

My desire is to continue taking photos like the ones found in an old album."

*A ceremony to celebrate the 100th days after the birth of a newborn child. A.k.a okuizome

limited edition of 300

signed copy available

stock number: NB058