Lukasz RusznicaSubterranean River (Signed copy)

When travelling to Japan, I knew one thing only — I wanted to take pictures based on Japanese mythology; I wanted to photograph the Yokai — the monsters of legend. Photography came as the result of working in new surroundings; it was the end process of meeting people and building relationships — this is surely why so many of the pictures (and the intimate ones in particular) are of my friends or the people who trusted me — of humane people. The non-human world is more than a background or visual filler; it is of equal importance. I understood that what interested me most here was nature. Man is a part of it; of equal importance to a stone, a bush, or a cat. I should add that the word “nature” is none too precise; it is too easily reduced to patches of wilderness “unspoilt” by human hand. I call “nature” whatever is subject to biological, chemical, and physical processes — whatever exists, grows old, and decays. This series enquires about the whole — how unfulfilled we feel and how we seek a way out. This was the origin of Subterranean River.