2010　 Prize-winning works / Other entries from overseas

The Moment of Birth
/ Hasegawa Tomomi (Chiba)

Message from the photographer

What are we to call this period when we're neither children nor adults? Staring into her eyes through the viewfinder, I can tell that things are in flux. Her concerns about her studies, love life, and future are tossed about like the surface of water being rocked about in the wind. Once I really came to know this outgoing, charming girl—what do you know?—she's just like me! At the same time she wants to break open her shell and become an adult, she wants also to stay forever in her warm and fuzzy comfort zone. But the clock keeps ticking. What color will we see, and what sounds will we hear at the moment that we finally break out of our shells? There isn't much time left before that happens.

About the subject

Yu is a mischievous student my junior in the same after-school club. She looks like a child when she's innocently fooling around, but looks her age when she's studying. The gloomy expression she shows just once in a while makes her look so grown up, it's enough to startle me. I'm taken by the joy she seems to find in the now, even as she has her moments of doubt.