Nekojigoku – the hell of cats Shoji Ogawa is a photographer from Osaka. He was born in that city and spent his whole life photographing “Naniwa” (former name of Osaka) and especially the districts of Kamagaseki and Shinsekai. Those districts are the heart of Naniwa and are also called “Kindai deep Osaka” (the modern deep Osaka). In an environment – apparently hostile, wild, messy and violent, Shoji Ogawa wanders in the streets and photographs all he can see around. His photography tells us about the human warmth he finds over there, despite the appearance. His photography is not fake, truly …

banri is a photographer driven by his feelings, what comes in front of his lens might finish in his camera and this is how he began to shoot cats with his iPhone. Taking photos is a life style and the photographs of cats are a healing practice done. Pochico, mother of three sons, all living in banri’s home, was crying in front of the door when she was 3 weeks old. Her mum left her and by a rainy day banri finally let her in. She was so cute… He is living in Osaka with his cats and he publishes …

“My work is portrait photography of people. I always think that I would like to capture, to represent the personality of the subject which I feel. When I take photos of my cats, it is the same.” Question: In a world saturated with « kitsch », where photographs of ‘kawai’ are rarely considered art, what do you think is the value of cat photography, a subject that so often becomes ‘kawai’? What were the difficulties for you to take a picture of a cat and not be « only » kawaï ? Answer: One is “kawai” of the imagination that came out of movies, …

Yasushi Mori – Hey! Hattori! Yasushi Mori is part of the jury’s top ten choice. He is one of the participants who published a book from his project proposed for Neko project, please check: http://www.libroarte.jp/hattori.html Yasushi Mori has never been really interested in photographing cats. At his house those last years he got a cat named Hattori-kun, fled from Futaba, a town in Fukushima, when the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated the area in 2011. Yasushi Mori gradually starts to pay attention to Hattori-kun, overwhelmed both by his solitariness and his loveliness. Let’s listen to the unexpected experience that Yasushi …

We will start this week with Yu Hirai, a photographer that we cherished since her series « Entre chiens et loups », who is also a talented drawer. She has this month an article about her another series MADAME ACTION in NIEPCEBOOK10 magazine: https://www.corridorelephant.com/ For Neko project she proposed us a project started a while ago: Maya Neko. The animal, the cat, is metaphoric and real. On the way from her mother’s home to the metro station, the old lady encounters the cats from the neighbourhood. This usual walk shows her physical independency but freedom of mind despite her old …