How a moment in time captures an entire life

When I visited Sapporo recently, lilacs were in full bloom about a fortnight earlier than usual. The lilac shrub is the city's symbol. The clusters of purple buds and pale lavender blossoms basked in the sun, emitting a graceful fragrance that made me want to use the French word, lilas.

The oldest and biggest lilac shrub in Sapporo is in the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden. It was originally a transplant of a sapling brought from the United States during the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

The following morning, the winter chill was back. In what I might call the "lilas chill," the flowers, both big and small, looked forlorn in the light drizzle.

When even plants seemingly put on different expressions according to the surrounding atmosphere, one can readily understand how sentient living beings wear different expressions from one moment to another.

In front of Tokyo Station, I had my fill of the fascination with human portraits that capture the subjects' expressions with each click of the shutter. The Asahi Shimbun's AERA magazine, which is celebrating its 20th birthday, is holding a free exhibition of its front cover portraits until June 8. The photos are arranged on display panels, put up around the Marunouchi area.

The exhibits consist of about 830 original works by Eiichiro Sakata. Blown up from their magazine-cover size, they carry tremendous impact.

According to Sakata, he usually shoots at least 100 frames per session, but he finds "only one or two pictures" to be really satisfactory.

When Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) posed for Sakata 19 years ago, the Honda Motor Co. founder observed, "I always thought Soichiro Honda had only one face. But now I can see he's got many faces."

And when actor Chishu Ryu (1904-1993) posed two months after Honda, the elderly actor shyly confided in Sakata, "I'm quite old as you see, but I still become nervous and self-conscious when it's time to face the camera. I'm like that even when the film starts rolling during a movie shoot."

Some of the portraits bring out the personalities of the subjects in a way that reminds me of the pleasingly delicate scent of lilas. This is especially true of portraits whose subjects are already deceased. Their confident expressions, captured at just the right moment, are evocative of the sum total of their lives.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 12 (IHT/Asahi: May 13,2008)