Tetsuya Endo

Which happiness do you prefer, artificial one or natural one? To confirm this myself, I have taken pictures of Canadian life for 1 year travelling across the country. Canada seemed most developed country co-existing with nature. Originally I had a sense of pleasure with nature as a Japanese. Having been involved in advertising industry, however, I became believe higher-standard goods should be able to fulfil our hopes, and regarded developed world as developed life. However, actually I am fed up with the materialism in Japan with my over 15 years career. For humans' desire is endless.

The great thing of advertising is to enable people to think positively in lives. So should my photographs. Without the sake of advertisements (I have been a creative director and copywriter), the photographs by themselves can focus on truth without vanity. I know that truth exists only in our minds and it is really beyond describing in words. Taking pictures for me is to gaze at objects thoroughly to capture something yet to be seen.

Where I stand is the Japanese spirituality, "Mono-no-aware" (appreciation for changing), which reflects on the feeling of "Wabi" and "Sabi" (beauties of simplicity and aging) and is not always as clear edged as Western culture. That way of appreciation has been fading out particularly after World War Two. Between West and Orient I was wandering what our happiness is, and meeting First Nations' people in Canada have had me be re-aware the fact that we are a part of Nature. I also found that the conception of "Share" is the Canadian basis came from the perception of the First Nations' people. Almost all of the Canadians I met even didn't realise it though.

The First Nations' perception, "People belong to land, not land belong to people," is that once Asian people understood in common, and is quite different from Christianity in which humans is the centre of the world. Christianity should have been helping encourage technologies for humans' own sake, to some extent. Majority of people on earth now, I think, tend to think that primitive world is equal to primitive life, and thus the "Inferior" life has to be improved. However, how happy the First Nations people as well as Canadians look! They were as if being indifferent from substantial satisfactions having high-tech appliances; despite the fact that many of them were Christians, they were afraid of and admiring the nature, not Christ himself.

It was not until being aware we are in a body of Nature and admitting the defeat we suffer that we might be able to relieve ourselves. Human beings is always defeated by nature; everything takes place according to the laws of nature and only with which seem lie our joys. With conflicts, everything is dramatically changing. No matter how ours is transition in each of migration, materialism and religion, happiness there should be with the native way. I keep focus on further pursuing indigenous things, which will offer us hints to the next stage for materialism.

Born in Shizuoka-prefecture, Japan, 1961. BA, Seikei University (Major: Cultural Science) in 1985. As a copywriter (creative director) in the Japanese advertising industry for over 15 years, I have never been satisfied with and by compelling myself and others to sell and buy goods. Thus, I left Japan or its materialism for apparently nature-co-existing Canada, where as photographer finding that I can't be a Japanese without Asian background prompted me to settle in the Philippines.

I can no longer provide any prints from  the positive films which I showcased here, because I lost all the slide films for flood. I am now focusing on digital photography which should be used on web. Please take a look at https://500px.com/p/tetsuyaendo?view=photos and https://www.flickr.com/photos/194284127@N03/