Perhaps thats because I think a lot about the questions about presenting people how they want to be presented and the value of purely decorative art because, regarding the latter, a lot of what I do is purely decorative art and I have to justify that to myself and, regarding the former, the question of how certain people want to be presented and what that means the context of a photo essay is the core theme of one of my biggest projects.

As for decorative art, the question is not whether the Geishas themselves are art or decorative art, it’s about Arif’s depiction of them. I think the depth of knowledge Arif shows in his responses indicates that his work is far deeper than the commercial photogs creating adverts and calendars against whom Sydney wails. How to communicate that artfully in a photo book is the challenge, and what I find interesting about the discussion.

My thinking on presenting people how they want to be presented, which is typically both literally and figuratively in the best light possible, is that for that to work, the audience has to know something that the subjects don’t, or that the subjects don’t want the audience to know. I suspect that some kind of disconnect along those lines is what this work needs to effectively rebut Sydney’s criticisms. I’m not saying that it’s not there. The more Arif fleshes out the text in his comments, the more I think I see it.

The journey of the Geisha starts when they are around 12 and the first few years, they are watching their elder sisters and learning (each is assigned an elder teacher to guide her and who will introduce her to people/manners/way of the Geisha). Once a certain skill in performance (dance/music) is achieved (usually around age 15-16), they can then move on to become a Maiko and start entertaining customers. The process is that the tea house will arrange for the Maiko to come and entertain the customers for a 2-3 hour period. If the Maiko is very inexperienced, the Lady/owner of the tea house is present to help along the younger Maiko who will in her naive ways be cute/funny and will talk to the customers and take care of them (serving tea/beer.) The customers will either ask for a dance performance or play silly games to relax/have fun and when the time is up, the Maiko moves on to another tea house and repeats. The Maiko is trying to learn how to behave (a different sense of responsibility) and how to adjust to different personalities as well as learning new dance/music to be able to perform. Usually the dance/music program changes every month and they have a repertoire of 12-15 dances. Throughout the year there are addition/formal performances where they will perform with their older/more experienced sisters and gain more confidence. Usually around the age of 20, she has enough confidence and skill and will then become a full fledged geisha and start cultivating her own customers. Once she has repaid her debt to the house she belongs, she can move out and live on her own but till then, she lives in the house she belongs to. A geisha never retires but has to leave if she gets married.

There are also practical reasons to have a Maiko around e.g. if two company Presidents are having a confidential conversation, someone still has to serve them tea and be available to take care of things in the room and the young girl is non-threatening plus sometimes can break the ice.

The Gion district now has less than 20 Maiko and many do not make it into the role of a full fledged Geisha. For some, the pressure is quite high because they feel they are not living up to the expectations of their teachers, for some the spotlight is too much, and for some, it is tough to be able to manage all the rules in this modern world. I have been fortunate to have photographed almost all of them and some I have had extensive time with. I am very impressed that even as teenagers, their level of professionalism is so high and especially compared to other Japanese youth who even till a later stage in life do not have a focus. Many of the maiko do not start out beautiful but as one of the house mothers told me, “they become beautiful because every one is watching them and they need to live up to the expectations”.

Just a side note on one of the pictures – #8. The black kimono is the most formal of the kimonos and worn just a few times during the year. In this picture (which is the only one done without natural light) one can see the yellow grains of rice in her hair. This picture is very symbolic of a New year picture when she will take three kernels and give them to a favorite customer who will keep them as a good luck charm. As Napolean said, “men will die for a medal of honor” and for many customers, it is a privilege to be able to receive these.

Bob, thank you very much for the link to the video. I love watching the dance which is called Awaodori and in Summer, thousands of people of all ages line up the streets of Tokyo and dance in their Yukatas (summer kimonos). The first time I saw the dance, I was so impressed – when was the last time one danced on the street with one’s grandmother?

David, I think you once said “I have to declare to myself that where I am is the best picture”. I also interpreted that as it is OK to walk away from other pictures and just focus on what you want to get.

Gordon – Sometimes a picture in my head is B&W and sometimes it is color – I just selected them accordingly.

Thank you all for your comments and please feel free to ask if there are any questions.

thanks so much for you thoughtful reply (god, how i wish more photographers who publish here try to jump in and chat, i did when published long ago, and it was both enjoyable and beneficial (for my own thinking, reactions etc)…

Anyway, LOVE that you’ve offered some anecdotal info to your experience, again so important i think (though of course unnecessary) to add insight and reflection for viewer. One of the reasons I enjoy looking at work at BURN is just that: the opportunity for photographers (young/emerging folk and ummm, emerged folk ;))) to share and to discuss. It has always seemed to me the most important aspects of the BURN mission (other than to share photography and promote photographers) was the educational/existential experience of making pictures. It so important. I really value that you’ve taken the time, and had the patience, to provide both the thinking behind your process and project but also the actually experience of choice making and evolution. :))…..

Nothing more to add, really, except something that’s pretty cliched: The most difficult thing it seems to me for young photographers (and old ones too) is to remember a very simple thing: find and EMBRACE who you are as a person and as a photographer, that will define the project and the way your work and gather. I like that your project seems steeped and formed in the way you manage to think and to experience the world around you, rather than trying a bit of this and a bit of that. Once one figures out who they are as a photographer, than they simply run with that and allow that to deepen. What is nice to read in your statements, and is clear in the work, is a ‘belief’ in it, and that is so important. We never stop trying to challenge ourselves and expand, but that is different than belief. Enjoyed your responses very much…

and one last think. The story of the geisha walking down the street with the wooden shoes and the bell…that reminds me of one of my favorite parts from Chris Marker’s incredible film ‘Sans Soleil’ (btw, please folk, dont think i’m comparing Arif’s work with Marker’s, hahahahahahahah :))…just i wanted to share a scened…kimono’d dancers dancing in the street (they’re not geisha, but, well, same beautiful moment)….

good luck Arif. look forward to seeing more.

the dancing sequence is at 10:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbRso7bLJ30

cheers
bob

i have searched high and low for single photographers who have depicted geisha…sure lots of pictures of geisha’s on Google yet nary a single one man band approach, except of course for Jodi’s Geisha…so in terms of a “one person” look there isn’t really much…

i think oftentimes people expect five different approaches in one essay or what i call a portfolio in this case….Arif has simply done ONE THING….why isn’t one thing enough? of course there is always another way, but do all of the individual ways need to be an encyclopedia?

i think we all have ADD…me too…we skip around with a lot of pots on the back burner…unfinished ideas….not completed thoughts….a bit of this and a bit of that….we want this and then we want that….we buy a red umbrella and then immediately wish we had bought a blue one…and sometimes here i see in the critiques a jumping around of wanting each thing to be everything….

Arif STOPPED..one of the few who stops.

paid attention ..TO ONE THING…DONE….

no small task in my opinion….it is what i try so hard to get my students to do and myself to do as well…SIMPLIFY…..look at great movies, great sculpture, great painting, great opera…all simple stuff..one easy to understand story or mood….the “story” of Macbeth can be told in two sentences…not complex..we do not need to know everything about Lady Macbeth and her life, we need only know ONE THING…..

the “diagram” of the greatest art and stories ever told is generally pretty damn comprehensive…

HOW the story get told, either as document or as art is THE THING…

Arif shows geisha as i am sure they want to be seen..THEY are the ART…”merely decorative”? i would submit that on this cold cruel planet that the level of “decorative” within the world of geisha would be among the most artistically intrinsic upper level values around…there are others of course..yet worth being done even if there are individual pictures out there that might look similar to Arif, alas only Arif has actually put then all together under one roof so to speak…

so in summary i would say let Arif do THIS and let somebody else do THAT….OR after Arif does “this”, he can later do “that”, yet i think he dies artistically if he tries to do both or more simultaneous….

Arif has articulated his own case very very well imo…..

See you soonest in New York Michael…always fun to banter with you….

cheers, david

Just curious why you chose colour here when the ones on your site are black and white? Lovely stuff on your site by the way.

The imagination is more alive when there is little explanation or elucidation.

Stage photography doesn’t traditionally include the audience either …

The current work concentrates on what is seen by the men for whom this exists, both from their point of view and reflecting the historically stringent formal artistic requirements.

Whether Arif wants to expand his work in this way, totally up to him …

Continuing the repetition, I don’t think portraying people as they want to be seen is necessarily a bad thing, but there are usually some serious pitfalls if one is interested in making something other than purely decorative art. Not that there’s anything wrong with purely decorative art, either. If that’s what you are about, that’s fine, but you run into Sydney’s critique, the first one, that asks what separates this work from a, say, calendar. Note that I am not making that particular critique, but I do think it’s one that needs to be answered (not publicly of course, but for yourself). Perhaps there’s something in your apparently deep knowledge in the level of detail they go to to be successful at what they do? I think you’ve probably captured something of that already. But it may be something you want to ponder further.

Sidney, Thank you very much for the comments and I am happy to get to know you. Hope you will revisit Japan one of these days and we can talk in person. It would be great to learn from your experiences since things must have been at very basic stages for foreigners when you were here and you must have also made a lot of effort to get accepted in a place like Kyoto.

Vivek, thank you for taking the time to comment. I am happy that you like the last five pictures.

Imants, thank you and I respect the fact that you are in a totally different league than myself. I wish I could understand at your level so that I could learn another language of expression.

Kyunghee, Thank you. I really like your new book. You have such a unique look to your images that I always look for them and smile when I see that it is you.

Bob, thank you very much for the link to Tewfic’s page (which I was not aware of) and thank you very much also for taking the time to elaborate which helped my understanding and will help me evolve. It is interesting that as time has progressed, I find myself (actually not only myself but also my wife) getting drawn in more and more into this world almost to the point of addiction. My first personal exposure to the Geisha were purely coincidental but the image of a beautiful young maiko in her beautiful kimono walking home in the side streets of Gion on a spring night and the sound of her wooden shoes mixed with the sounds of the little bells around her feet as she walked away was simply unforgettable. That photograph in extremely low light is still one of the most true feelings of my Geisha pictures since the world of the Maiko and Geiko starts at 6:00 PM and continues till 1:00 (curfew time for the Maiko in Gion) and during the time they will go to two-three tea houses for dinner and entertainment and unless one is inside, it is impossible to get them to stop and be photographed.

During the first three months of this project, my wife and I both moved to Kyoto and lived within walking distance of both Gion and Miyagawa-cho and so could see these young ladies walk to and from work on a daily basis. Being a foreigner who always asked permission to photograph them in Japanese (versus the tourists snapping away) brought out a few smiles and slowly one started recognizing the faces (make-up is only when working/entertaining) and relationships developed. In this all female world, I strongly feel that I was helped by the fact that I was with my wife all the time and the younger Maiko called her “Older Sister”. Getting feedback from them and their house mother on the pictures I gave them helped me understand the nuances as they see them (e.g. you never should show this picture because you can see a little bit of my leg, or the fact that different hairstyles were only for specific events etc) and I learned how every little change in their looks was an opportunity for them to reconnect with customers (e.g. hair ornaments change monthly and one can tell exactly which month a picture was taken by looking at it). So in a way, my early photos were heavily influenced by how they saw the pictures themselves.

As time evolved, I started working with different local photographers to see how these long time regulars approached the Maiko and Geiko. Two “teachers” have been extremely influential in my photographs (and getting me early access) but have very contrasting styles where one is very traditional and one is different by Japanese standards so I was evolving somewhere in between but learning within the Japanese “sense” of how the picture should be (e.g. “A Maiko is playful/like a girl versus a Geiko is elegant/sensual so the photograph should reflect that”). As you can probably guess, I have a fairly extensive set of pictures in a variety of situations, some natural, some posed, some very serious, some very playful. As Sidney mentioned earlier, there is a strong sense of balancing one’s image in Japan and at this stage, I will respect the privacy of the individuals. The challenge for me is to be able to show that individuality more in the photograph even if video is a better medium. I will think deeper on how to best approach so thank you for the challenge.

Brian/Gordon – Thank you very much for the compliments.

I truly appreciate all the comments. Please keep them coming.

http://thetravelphotographer.blogspot.ca/2013/01/arif-iqball-maiko-geiko.html?spref=fb

thanks for your thoughtful and considerate reply. I’m always happy when photographers chime in, for what else do we have if not conversation to pick and prick and rope all of us forward :). Just a point of clarification. Please know that I also was NOT comparing your work to Jodi’s (completely different intents between what your project is about and what Jodi’s documentary work was about). what I was trying to suggest (albeit, especially for me) a bit quickly as I was literally running to teach. I’m not interested in you ‘documenting’ the life of Maiko, but something else: how to undercut the ‘lie’ or rather the veil of the ‘performance/art’ aspect of their presentation: that these are actually complex young woman and that Geisha is both a visually and emotionally complex (and certainly much more complex that most westerners imagine) life/role/job, etc. I really love so many of the pictures (i stated which ones in my first comment) and many of the B/w are also gorgeous and get, actually, closer to what I’m hinting at :). I kind of non-postcard postcard…or rather, something a bit, um, fleshier. I’ll give you an example.

Araki, throughout his photographic life, has dealt with Kimono/geisha iconography is completely fucked up and mad-beautiful ways, opening both the sexuality (explicit) and the use of bondage. The imagery totally fucks up the viewer and questions both the tradition (that its just cold, perfect art as entertainment) and the viewer’s expectation (why be entertained in such a manner, what really does the participant want, etc). Amazing and exciting and wickedly playful and shocking (at the time when he first started shooting young girls in kimono, or maiko’s or older geisha, etc)…..

I dont mean to suggest at all to go that route (you are a different type of photographer with a different sensibility by far). I mean: how to transform your experience with these young woman and their role and how you react to that visually (you’ve got a great eye for light and composition) to something that, maybe doesn’t quite give the viewer answers (here is what they look like) but asks the viewer questions….like i said 9 does that, adn some of the b/w too…

anyway, hope that makes sense? :))…i’m reluctant to suggest, only to point out that good photography (and youre a terrific photographer) and good stories/projects, in the end, leave us more with questions I think…

i look forward to seeing how this goes forward :))

and congrats again Arif :))

cheers
bob

beautiful works.

I love the silence through photos… and floating petals of sakura…

Thank you!