Fumio Hanano

Fumio Hanano

"My main activity is producing my personal exhibitions which occur several times a year, in the city of Kita-Kyushu (south-west Japan). With my speciality being monochrome gelatin silver prints, I've also come to focus my goals on photographic expression as fine art. I began photography soon after entering high school. At that time I had a great interest in visual arts, and studied both painting and photography at the same time. It was during my high school years that I saw and was profoundly impressed by the works of Wynn Bullock and Edward Weston, and always hoped that one day I would be able to create such works myself.
I have a great interest in people. In particular, it's a person's memory that creates their identity, and therefore I have always created works on the theme of human memory. I believe that in the future as well, I will continue to photograph works on the theme of human memory. Recently, I have begun to photograph Fine Art Nudes. However, it is not only the beauty of the physical human form that I wish to express, but also the mental aspects of heart, mind, and feelings. I hope express Japanese traditional beauty consciousness (eg, philosophy of mutability ) by photography.
I usually use T-Max100 film and T-Max400 film with the zone system. I use cameras ranging from 35mm to 4x5 and I do all my own film processing (use Microdol-x 1:3) and all my own printing. It is a matter of great importance to me. Because I wish express to invisible images, such as human memory, unconsciousness and mood.

Several of my works are displayed at Kitakyushu Photographer's Gallery (http://www.artcreate.com/photo/kpg/hanano.html).

I also run a web site called Art Create Photography (http://www.artcreate.com/photo/) . The objective of Art Create is to both introduce to more Japanese people the fine arts of western photographers, and to introduce the fine arts of Japan to the people of western countries. I would be very pleased to hear your impressions or advice on this site."