This annotation was created by Emily Chapman.
Isao is that you?
In the photographs which make up Album 1, Isao experimented with and refined his personal style of pose. As he moved more concretely behind the camera, those images in which he featured or was the focus begin to demonstrate a particular style of self-presentation that we can call “disengazed.” With the exception of formal group photographs or portraits, Isao largely avoided the “eye” of the camera. Alongside caption tone and word choice, it is this refusal to surrender to the subject-making of his own camera which marks Isao out as the primary photo taker of the Yajima albums, and the most likely creator.
So what did this disengazed pose involve? Largely it affected Isao when he was taking self-portraits. In these cases he often retreated alone to the garden and used the timer. He rarely looked directly at the camera, thus differentiating these self-styled photographs from the style of studio pose he was used to. Instead, he developed a style of pose where he looked at a point beyond the camera, usually to his right. This reminds viewers, one of whom was of course Isao, that there is much the camera cannot see. It is also possible that Isao’s middle-distance stare was the result of his own discomfort as a photographic subject and he found himself able to dislodge this awkwardness by not looking directly at the camera.
Why does it matter how Isao presented himself in his photographs? It matters because Isao demonstrates visual clues that he was aware of the work the camera did when it was focused on someone to take them out of themselves. He was consciously using the camera, final prints and album format to produce a version of himself. His goal was not documentation, but self-elevation as a desirable and interesting subject. Desire was immensely important to Isao and he not only wanted to look good himself, but appears to have delighted in Eiko as she posed for him. The last page of album 1 contains a scrapbook style collation of portrait photos of Eiko taken before she married Isao....
