Issui Enomoto is a taxi cab driver in Japan’s port city of Yokohama. But he’s also a photographer. And for Enomoto, these two go hand-in-hand, just like the relationship between a taxi and passenger.
Enomoto keeps his camera next to him at all times, snapping nighttime-scenes of streets, as well as passengers. But only with permission, and only if it’s safe.
For Enomoto, there’s a poetic serendipity in the act of picking up an unknown passenger and taking them to some destination: a seemingly random sequence of dreamlike events that have everything to do with chance.
Enomoto works at night and so the photographs are always dark. They appear to capture his view through the front window but also some kind of reflection that embeds the scene with an unintended view. The photos, in fact, are double exposure shots that are composed intentionally, and in an attempt to capture how he remembers things. “It’s like all those experiences are compressed into one single memory,” says the artist.
There’s a dubious element to Enomoto’s work, which shows through in his photographs. But he assures us that he always gets permission from his passengers to take their photographs. And safety is his top priority. For more on Enomoto, check out this short documentary, as well as his website.
