The notion of how photography can capture “certainty” was something I found myself constantly mulling over as I traveled around China and Europe. In the hope of trying to come to grips with this theme, I decided to come home and take photographs in Japan. To do this effectively, I realized that I would need to find a location that was both emotionally and intellectually provocative. The place I found was a city called Fukui, located on the sea of Japan, west of Tokyo.

The government had described it as the most eco-friendly town in the country, yet it is also the location of Japan’s first nuclear power stations. For me, this paradoxical situation captures the creative potential of the “certain / uncertainty” dichotomy as well as epitomizing contemporary Japanese society.

While taking photographs in Fukui I was attempting to direct myself toward “uncertainty” by trying to step out of my own perspective and getting inside the heads of the locals in the hope of capturing the scene as they might perceive it.

I found that by photographing people in their natural habitat, there was a strong sense of their identity being connected to that particular place. This was also something that I found in China as I traveled and took photographs in a similar way.
I concluded that a series of apparently ambiguous images could in fact bring to the foreground the indescribable links between people, places and history.