Kai Nagayama - PHROOM

Kai Nagayama is a 25 year-old fine art photographer based in NYC. He’s also work as a photo retoucher. He is originally from Kyoto, Japan and moved to the United States when he was 18 years old. He discovered his love toward photography when he just moved to the states. he was mainly taking street style photographs with a compact camera while he was riding a bicycle on his way to a language school. Everything around him in a foreign country was just cool and interesting, it was like he was in a treasure box. He discovered the works of conceptual/surreal artists online after he enrolled in his first photography class at college and he has been very much influenced by their works.

Bandage Portrait

This series I named Bandage Portraits. It is meant to explore the state of emotional destruction and resilience. It is so easy to be ignorant to your own feelings even though you are aware of them. I believe that every single person (if not most people) has their own stories that forces them to bring out strong feelings and I wanted to photograph them to show how beautiful those emotions are and that it is okay to express them. An emotion that is so raw; whether it is sheer happiness or an uncontrollable anger, is something I consider a very beautiful feature that we humans have. There is nothing artificial about it. They are never wrong. As you get older, you see more things that you did not see before and, little by little, one comes to understand why these emotions happen. Not allowing your emotions to control you can make you stronger otherwise you may end up feeling stuck in a pit hole when you don’t.

website: Kai Nagayama

Instagram: kainagayama

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