Exclusive Interview with Shinji Ichikawa

Shinji Ichikawa, winner of AAP Magazine 39: Shadows, was born into a family of photographers in Shimane Prefecture, Japan, where he grew up surrounded by cameras and prints. After graduating from Tokyo Visual Arts, he began his career in commercial photography before moving to New York in 1999 to explore a more personal, surreal approach to image-making. His work often investigates themes of space and presence. Now back in Shimane, he continues to create and exhibit his photography while managing his family’s studio.

We asked him a few questions about his life and work.

All About Photo: Tell us about your first introduction to photography.

Shinji Ichikawa: My very first encounter with photography was as a child peering into my grandfather’s Mamiya Flex, treating the twin-lens reflex like a toy and marveling at the miniature world inside the viewfinder.

What started your career as a photographer?

Growing up in a family photo studio, I literally inhaled the chemical scent of the darkroom, so pursuing photography felt as natural as breathing. The decisive turning point came in 1998, when I moved alone to New York. Immersed in the city’s cultural energy and armed with self-directed study, I felt an irrepressible urge to visualize formless sensations and emotions. Since then I have built my practice on two pillars: creating artworks as an artist and working as a craftsman who runs the family studio and applies commercialshoot skills.

You were born into a family that ran a photo studio. How did growing up surrounded by cameras and photographs influence your creative instincts?

Witnessing the “magic” of images emerging in chemical baths, waiting with my father for dawn light and shifting compositions in rural Japan, and silently observing the timing and precision of portrait lighting in the studio—these three layered experiences formed a creative stance that prizes tactile quality yet is bold enough to break it apart in art projects.


After graduating from Tokyo Visual Arts and entering the commercial photography world as an assistant, what prompted your shift toward more personal, artistic work?

While assisting commercial photographers in Tokyo, I felt my own colors fading. Seeking answers, I left for New York in 1998, locked my camera away for a year, and devoted myself to museums, galleries, and books such as The Photographic Method—an interview collection with 21 photographers. A sudden insight that those artists were seeing “vibrations in the air” made images flash before my eyes. The conviction to visualize intangible feelings fused with the craftsmanship I had honed at home, steering me from commercial assisting to pure artistic creation.

Your time in New York seems pivotal. How did that period of self-teaching and exploration shape your approach to photography?

During my first year in New York, I deliberately set the camera aside and devoted myself to visiting museums and galleries and studying photobooks. By repeatedly reading the interview collection The Photographic Method, I realized that the photographers were focusing less on “objects” than on the atmosphere —the subtle presence drifting through space and time. In that instant I grasped a new approach: building every composition around how to visualize the energy hidden in the intervals and empty spaces rather than the subject itself. This shift—observing first, then capturing the faint vibrations of a place—has formed the core of my work ever since, shaping my current exploration of space and existence.

You’ve mentioned drawing inspiration from Surrealism. How does that influence manifest in your current photographic language?

Surrealism emerges in my work as slight dislocations in the seams of reality— gaps and disquiet that unsettle the viewer’s subconscious.


Themes of “space and presence” often surface in your work. How do you define those concepts, and why are they central to your vision?

I see “existence” not as a fixed object but as a phenomenon that flickers into being from moment to moment, while “space” is the stage that allows that appearance. Therefore I prioritize intervals and blankness over the subject itself, aiming to reveal both the fragility of ever-shifting existence and the invisible energy that embraces it.

For me, the root of everything lies in perceiving existence. What seems like empty space actually contains the elements that let things be. I am drawn to the silence of nothingness and the impermanence that continually alters form.

Tell us more about your decision to return to Shimane Prefecture in 2001. How has being rooted there—while managing your family’s photo studio— shaped the way you see and document the world?

I returned to Shimane in 2001 to oscillate between the “acceleration” etched into me in New York and the “quiet” of my hometown, layering both sensations into my work. The city’s torrent of time, metallic fumes, and relentless signage sharpened my senses and gave me distance to view Japan from the outside. Conversely, Shimane’s sea breeze, earthy scents, scattered forest light, and the deep history of Izumo festivals soak in slowly. Commuting between speed and depth became a lens: my images now fuse urban acuity with local depth. New York-honed vision settles in Shimane’s tranquil oceans, mountains, and night sky, reflecting back and revealing overlooked Japanese allure that naturally reshapes how I record the world.


Let’s talk about your series on shadows, created in 2020. What was the emotional impetus behind this project?

When my 80-year-old father stood with an umbrella, I sensed aging and death in his back. I began The Old Man with an Umbrella to visualize the fear of inevitably losing him and to etch our remaining time together. As the project evolved, he transcended the personal to become “human” and eventually “a mere object,” questioning the very boundary between presence and absence.

What role does symbolism play in your storytelling, especially in this particular series?

By repeating a single black silhouette while altering landscapes, light, and color, my private model of “father” is elevated into a universal shadow of existence, prompting viewers to recall their own losses. The closed world formed by umbrella and silhouette is pierced by sky, clouds, and small hues that hint at wider time and space; that tension and quiet breath form the core symbolism of the series.



How do you see the balance between personal narrative and universal themes in your photography?

I always begin with intense personal feelings or experiences. I then translate that origin into visual symbols—color, form, light, blankness—leaving ma (intervals) so viewers can project their own memories. In this way, personal warmth and shared abstraction coexist, allowing the narrative to open naturally onto universal questions of life and death, the passage of time, and presence versus absence.

Looking at your overall body of work, would you say your style is evolving? If so, in what direction?

My early work focused on form, texture, and space itself. Gradually my attention shifted to the “atmosphere” and the “tremor of existence.” Recently I am drawn to perpetual flux—life and death, being and nothingness. Incorporating Japanese traditions such as Noh and bonsai, I seek to visualize these abstractions. The result is a style where quiet forms hold both temporal flow and psychological depth.


How do you balance the demands of running a studio with maintaining a creative, introspective practice?

The business and the art feed each other in a cycle. Daily studio shoots let me experiment with lighting and color management, and those technical discoveries feed my introspective work. Conversely, the spatial sensibility and use of blankness from personal projects return to the studio, adding fresh depth to portraits and product shots. This back-and-forth keeps both craft and creativity growing.

What future projects are you considering—are there any subjects or concepts you're eager to explore next?

I plan to translate the “quiet tension” and “condensed time” found in Japanese traditional arts—Noh choreography and stage ma, the miniature landscapes of bonsai, the chiaroscuro of classical architecture—into a contemporary photographic series expressed through my visual language.


Do you envision publishing a book or holding a major solo exhibition in the near future?

At present, I have no confirmed plans for publishing a photobook or staging a major solo exhibition. However, in October 2025 I will exhibit in the Sideshow Exhibition at FotoNostrum Gallery in Barcelona. In addition, my work has been long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2025 and will be shown on-screen at York Art Gallery in the UK from September 2025 through January 2026. I plan to use these opportunities to gauge the response to my new pieces and to explore the most suitable format for a future photobook or solo show.

Lastly, what do you hope viewers take away from your photographs—not just emotionally, but in how they observe the world around them?

I hope viewers experience how a tiny shift—a lengthening shadow, a slight flicker of light—can transform the entire scene. Once that awareness clicks, they may pause even in hectic life to observe wind paths, human traces, and the flow of time. Familiar places reveal new discoveries, and attention and sensitivity quietly deepen. That small tremor leading to a vast change in perspective is what my photographs aim to offer.