昭和30年12月14日、岡山備前の片田舎。相撲と写真と女が好きな安藤勉と、料理と裁縫と花が好きな孝子は夫婦になった。以来57年間、勉は妻である孝子の写真を撮り続けた。二人は同じ人生を歩み、同じ歩幅で歳を取っていった。その間に生まれた写真は膨大な枚数になり、それら全てに、勉から孝子への眼差しが刻まれていった。まるで移り行く季節の様に変化する日常を、そこから見てとることもできた。しかし老いに逆らえず、勉の視力はどんどんと落ちていった。そして写真もみるみる減っていった。写真が撮りづらくなると老衰は急速に進み、ついにはシャッター１枚も切れ無くなってしまった。

2010年、祖父の書斎に静かに眠っていた、この写真達を発見した。もはや誰の目に触れる事も無く、何十年も眠りについていた写真達。私はこのアルバムを書斎から取り出し、いくつかは大きく焼き伸ばし、きちんと額装をして、書斎中に掛けていった。勉に対する介護疲れと苛立ちから、彼の撮った写真を見ることを拒んでいた孝子だったが、最後はただただ、写真の中で微笑みかける自分に、立ち尽くし言葉を失うばかりであった。
過去と現在は、写真という一点のワープホールで再会を果たした。

On December 14th in 1955, Tsutomu Ando, who is in love with Sumo, photography and women, and Takako, who likes cooking, sawing and flowers, decided to live together as husband and wife in a small village called Bizen, Oakayama. Since then, Tsutomu had been taking portraits of Takako for 57 years. The two have walked on the same pathway at the same speed as they aged. Although the number of prints have reached countless, I could clearly see Tsutomu’s look towards Takako in every single image. I could also observe changes in their daily life just like one season is replaced by another. However, Tsutomu had gradually lost his eyesight as he got older. The more he lost his eyesight, the less photographs were taken. His struggle worsened his body condition even more and he finally became unable to take one single piece.

In 2010, I found these portraits which have been kept secretly in the drawer of Tsutomu’s library. They have been sleeping for decades without being found by anyone. I took these albums out of his library, enlarged some of them, neatly mounted and hang them one by one on the wall in his library. Takako refused to see them at first, as she had enough of taking care of Tsutomu and anger towards him, however, she could not resist but stood speechless when young Takako in the frame calmly smiled to her.
The past and the present has reunited at a point in a wormhole called Photography.