Interview in Sato Takeru Photo Book X (ten) 1.

 

-Since when have you wanted to visit Salar de Uyuni?

I don’t remember for sure, but since I was over twenty, I guess. Since the first time I saw a picture, I’ve wanted to go there. As I recall, it was a mirrored photo of a blue sky taken in the daytime. It was so pretty that I looked into it in various ways. I learned that the scenery is totally different in dry season and rainy season and that the stars are awesomely beautiful at night, and the knowledge made me all the more eager to go.

-Before the boom?

It seems so. I thought it was already a boom and asked people around me about it, but unexpectedly they didn’t know. Probably, it had just started to attract attention.

-Your dream has come true.

Yep. I have visited many places and more than once I found the photos were better. But Uyuni was different. It was just the same as the photos. It is exceptional, isn’t it? When I went into the salt lake by car I felt that it was the place that wouldn’t betray my expectation.

-You were murmuring, ‘I think I can stay here forever’ when you got off the car, looking around at the scenery.

I don’t remember the words themselves, but it means ‘I love this place’.

-Do you like the place surrounded by nothing but nature?

Probably human beings all love such a place. There is no one who isn’t moved by visiting Salar de Uyuni, right? But, say, if you see a model of Salar de Uyuni, none of you will be attracted to it. When I thought why, I found it’s because it is vast and extensive. Nothing shuts out the view. That’s the only reason why you’re moved, I think.

-Do you think those who have grown up there will feel like that?

I don’t know. I’d like to ask them. But when I saw Monet’s large painting of water lilies, I was impressed with its awesomeness, too! I wouldn’t have felt like that when I had seen the picture of a smaller size, like a postcard.

-Along this line of thinking, Uyuni’s scale is extravagant.

That’s right. Besides, when you search for information before visiting some place, you are often given too good information to be real, right? Such traps. (lol) This time, there were no such things. I usually find myself disappointed to see the real place because the photos had been too nice. But Salar de Uyuni was great because it approached me as it was. In that sense, I’d like to recommend this place to my friends and this is my favorite place now.

-How will you recommend it?

I’d say you should go there.

-lol

It may seem so far but it’s really worth visiting, I’d say. It is wonderful not because there is something nice there but because there is nothing there infinitely, and it attracts me. Probably you may be also impressed to see vast grassland that spreads as far as the eye can reach, I think. Above all, the water and the sky is especially beautiful, right?

-But don’t you get bored with such a situation?

Well, someday. (lol) But it will take some time, I mean. Since the place is an unrealistic and extraordinary, I won’t get bored for several days.

-When you go on a trip, do you usually head to a vast and large place?

No. I seldom go on a trip at all. In the first place, I don’t take a trip for a change of air, or in order to meditate. It’s like I’d like to do such a thing after I get married all at one time. Now, if I had time to do such things, I would prefer to do something specific to enhance my ability. When I have settled down, married and having children, and feel like saying, ‘Whew!’ I want to travel a lot. (lol) Then I’ll have someone to travel with and enjoy leisure, well, I just want to enjoy being comforted.

-You have such impression of ‘travel’?

Yep. I don’t think that just because you travel, your ability as a human will improve. It may allow you to reset yourself when you’re driven to the extremity, though.

-Did you think about your job while standing in Salar de Uyuni?

Simply, I thought I’d like to make a film in such a place.

-What kind of film?

I don’t know yet. But films have great power now, don’t they? For example, once photographers other professionals are involved, the scenery will look more beautiful than it really is, right? If you try that for Uyuni, what will happen, I wonder? How much more wonderful will it be?

-And that on a large screen, right?

Exactly! I thought so.

-You got interested in this place through photos, actually went there, and now you’re seeing the photos of you that were taken there. What do you think of it?

Well, it isn’t the matter of the scenery of Uyuni, but I start to think from a business point of view at once. I’m curious about whether it is properly good as a photo book.

-You’re cool-headed from the start.

And at a glance, I thought it’s all right. It was nicely done, I thought.

-You want people to know the nature in Uyuni, right? By the way, I hear that you’re interested in nature, wild lives, and the universe itself.

It means my way of thinking comes from an aptitude for science. I like science, such as biology.

-Thinking in the cosmic scale, human life is nothing but a short-lived glow, right? Do you sometimes think like that?

I like to think like that.

-When do you think like that?

Basically, I’m always thinking like that. Everybody likes to do so, don’t they?