the tattoo
on her back says
にょむげんほうよう
如夢幻泡影

2015, the year Nansensu began.

​

She was a local television figure. She told me she wanted something darker than boudoir, something to keep as a memory of youth. I later understood it was not about youth at all, but about escape.

​

She entered the washitsu quietly. Chanel perfume lingered and faded. Valentino heels were left at the door. A Burberry trench and pantyhose were shed without ceremony. Jewelry reduced to a single ring. She slipped into a yukata, tightened the obi, and knelt. The room was unheated. Her warmth filled it anyway. The way she moved felt less like posing than preparation, almost ritual.

​

In public she was composed and polished, defined by how she was seen. Here, the tattoos across her back surfaced without explanation. Her toes curled beneath her. Her face offered nothing, neither performance nor refusal.

​

In front of the camera she became a pretend yūjo. By pretending, she revealed something that could not appear elsewhere, a self shaped by desire, submission, defiance, and control.

​​​​

​That is where photography stopped being memory. It became a mirror for the self we dare not reveal.