Laxalt Photography

Contrasting images so that details disappear focuses the gaze on the black dots formed by the cranes and the emotion on the line that separates the space. But the space is not entirely empty. In Japanese calligraphy, black ink represents only part of the completed work. The paper is consubstantial to it, and therefore constitutive of the work as much by its texture, its color as by the space it represents.

In Senbazuru, the sky, filled with this delicately Japanese color, opens the space and frees the viewer to mindfully imagine what exists out of view through a form of meditation.

But this uniform sky also reveals the power of black. Of ink. To bring out in relief these cranes which become as much birds as lines, dots or kamis, those thousands of spirits of the Shinto religion, which can be a river, a tree, a memory of a person or a simple stone.

As Soulages created a snow landscape with only lines of black ink to accentuate the white of the paper, this sky focuses the gaze on the intense black of the cranes, like a back-light in front of a dazzling atomic mushroom. "Black is a violent, active, striking color" explains Soulages.

By rendering details of the represented elements invisible, Senbazuru accompanies the viewer in a reading of that which is purely form and line, encouraging us to distance ourselves from a naturalistic or colorist vision. Although cranes always fly in a V-shape for greater efficiency, this form is only seldomly present in the photographs: the lines are straight lines, curves, arabesques ... and more conducive to contemplation. And the cranes themselves are reduced to "lines". They become dots, simple forms whose repetition forms a new alphabet, new musical notes, a new calligraphy of hope. This simplification of the image feeds the imagination and echoes Sadako's fierce desire to finish her Senbazuru: to focus on the essential, find paper, make one more crane... and hope.

Cranes are not all that are conveyed by the simple line. The other elements, trees, branches, threads, through this play of contrasts, lose their primary characteristics and become core points of focus that structure and give a dreamlike meaning to the image.

This shift in photography from an immutable movement of life to a representation by line leads the viewer towards what Hachiro Kanno defines as "permanensence", that subtle balance between the ephemeral and the eternal.

For Japanese calligraphy, if beauty lies in the composition, the brushstrokes and the color of the ink, the most important aspect becomes the synergy between positive and negative space. In Senbazuru, an often delicate balance exists between emotion evoked by the birds themselves and the emptiness that surrounds them. These legendary cranes embody the essence of the imagination that provides a sensitive energy for the balance of space. This is illustrated in the photo named “Four” where four cranes are depicted as occupying a small space in the middle of the photo — and one appears to want to free itself from the others. By breaking the homogeneity of the group this bird brings a sense of power to the image, defining the necessary balance with “meaningful emptiness”.

Balance within the space is equally defined by the rhythm and vibrations in the succession of cranes in the image. Posed as such they resemble a sequence of calligraphic strokes — a line, space, line — that resonates with the Japanese concept of “ma”. The architect Isozaki Arata defined “ma” as “the natural distance between two or more things existing in a continuity, as the interval, space or void between two elements, or successive actions; denoting either temporal or spatial extension, consciousness of a sense of place, and focus on the intention of negative space” (from “The Concept of Space-Time in Japan”).

Thus, the “ma” could be seen here as being the interval between the cranes, by which they are both separated and connected. It defines space, intensity, rhythm, as a celestial musical scale.

Cranes have long been a source of fascination. Their majestic migrations have punctuated seasons and created myths. The times we live in now, however, have changed what felt unchangeable. 

As if deaf to the changes of our modern world, migratory flocks of cranes have become literal migrants forced to change countries to survive the effects of climate change. This phenomenon has been evident for many years, where global warming has forced cranes to search for more tempered environments to spend the winter. In the tales from my own childhood, cranes spent the winter in warm countries, which meant North Africa. The rising temperatures then pushed them to Spain and, more recently, France. 

Are these winged migrants precursors, birds of ill omen? Perhaps what are today cranes, could tomorrow be men.