美島菊名 offical web site

The Japanese female photographer, Kikuna Mishima
starts from drawing out the image which flashes in her head.
And then, she makes every tools appeared in it.
Finally, she takes photos to visualize details in the studio,
under her perfect control.
She never compromises.
Her personal style of distinguish is
"Far more than just photography"
She could be a heretic, as we call, considering in or outside of Japan.

Kikuna was read out the picture books in her bed for 1hour
every night from when she was 1 year old.
She listened to the radio of reading Japanese old tales
in the evening, when she became a Junior High-school student.
The reason why she needed the storyteller each time,
is to concentrate on only pictures in a book so that
she could make her own vision from the story wider and clearer.

I felt as if I was released to this real world alone when I got older.
The new world I met in real was so unreasonable, stingingly beautiful,
and too odd to adjust myself all right.
After I went through all the experiences and feelings of sadness, joy,
or something hard to overcome,
I suddenly realized I had already found the solutions out of my questions,
in the pictures from books.
Just like I was led to the answer by pictures in the book my mother
used to read out beside me.

I don´t know when but I started to think that I am here for
someone else, not only for my profit nor fame.
I feel that I can do it in next 10years.
My encounter with my current private model, Lily, might have changed
my way of looking at life .
This is likely my destiny and I keep on working lately.
I overlap myself on one of the fairy tales, called
"A girl stamped on the white bread" written by Andersen.
There was a girl named Ingel who was saved by an another girl
at the end of the story.

"A girl stamped on the white bread " Written by Andersen
A brief outline
Ingel is a girl who has a beautiful face.
but is also cold-hearted and no one likes her.
She was told to take a day off to visit her parents by the land lady.
She was handed a white bread.
There was a puddle on her way.
Ingel stamped on the bread because
she hated to stain her brand new cloths and shoes
The bread carrying Ingel went down the dirt deeper and deeper.
The underground was the world of dirty place where witches live.
Her body became as hard as a stone, and then froze.
And the bread stuck hard to her foot and unremovable.
A little girl heard about what happened to Ingel and broke into tears one day.
"Poor, Ingel.  She has no choice but to feel sorry from the bottom of her heart if she wants to come back."
Ingel recieved the voice of that girl.
She felt her cold heart melting after all.
She regretted what she did and cried for it.
A lay of light started shining down to the bottom of the dark puddle then.
Ingel changed to a small bird.
"I want to do something good."
The delight feeling welled out from her true heart.
She collected crumbs and kernels
and gave away the most to the crying, hungry ones.
She fed the same amount as the white bread which Ingel just stamped on.
Two of her greyish wings turned into the bright color.
The bird could fly far up to the sun, right after flapping comfortably.