THE NAKANO NEBUTA FESTIVAL OF AOMORI

Aomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric Petr Web
Photographs from the heart of the Matsuri © Éric Petr, 2023
Nikon Df & Nikkor H85mm f1.8

青森ねぶた祭 | Aomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23

These images were created at the heart of the Nebuta Matsuri held in Nakano in October 2023.

Aomori Nebuta Matsuri is a major festival in the Tōhoku region, designated as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. 

It is an incredible parade of costumed dancers (haneto 跳人), taiko 太鼓 players and huge floats, shimmering in color and lit up at night.

As a sign of support for this region of northeastern Japan, which was devastated by the terrible earthquake of 2011, Nakano Town Hall in Tōkyō has been organizing its own festival since 2012 under the name “Nakano Festival to Support Tōhoku”, where Aomori’s Nebuta Matsuri takes place in October every year.

“It is a wave that you feel deep inside your body. The drums beating with all their power, the crowd in effervescence, the colorful dances, sometimes jerky and sometimes delicate, the flute tunes that pierce this orderly din, everything is so energetic that the senses are sucked into this whirlwind of fervor. In the midst of this bubbling, it seems as if this visual and sonic material is melting together.
Letting myself be carried along by the current of this lively crowd, I try to capture, with my camera, this exaltation, this bubbling mass of individuals gathered for this marvelous festival. Here and there, with long breaths from my shutter, I record faces, hands, colors, dancers, percussionists in action, and all this visual material accumulates in successive layers on my sensor, like those of a painter on his canvas, to restore all the density and depth of the scene.

These eighteen photographs are excerpts from the sixty that tell the poetic story of Aomori’s Nebuta Matsuri.

You can enlarge the image by zooming[Ctrl] and [+]

Aomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric PetrAomori Nebuta Matsuri 2o23 © Éric Petr

MY TIMELESS EFFLORESCENCES OPUS 8

ポピー opus_8 © Eric Petr, 2022

Barely suggested,
and sometimes evanescent as a thought,
in a movement generated by warm kisses,
ruby color,
pink or sunny,
symbol of lightness and carelessness,
like a breath which would cross the seasons,
straight out of the matrix of the world,
are reborn in this magical Provence,
the time of a dance announcing the torrid heat,
my timeless efflorescences.

ポピー opus_8 © Eric Petr, 2022

I am very happy to share with you this new series, exhibited by CORRIDOR ÉLÉPHANT.
I invite you to discover the continuation of this photographic work in the Exhibition Gallery.

www.corridorelephant.com/expositions/eric-petr

ポピー opus_8 © Eric Petr, 2022

A TELLURIC JAPAN | CORRIDOR ÉLÉPHANT’S EXHIBITION

I am very happy to know that my photographic story 「地電流」has been featured on CORRIDOR ÉLÉPHANT photography exhibitions!

地電流, in Japanese, means telluric current.

This photographic work highlights the perceived feeling, when one lives in Japan, of these enigmatic forces which make the identity of Japanese culture.
I relate this dull telluric energy to images that respond to some of these vibrations as if it were, in a way, a topological ultrasound.

See the 地電流 exhibition of Corridor Éléphant
https://www.corridorelephant.com/expositions/eric-petr

地電流 2o18 | Erection of a demiurge in the skies of Tōkyō © Éric Petr
地電流 2o18 | Erection of a demiurge in the skies of Tōkyō © Éric Petr