●attention

"POKERFACES"
found in the streets.

"Even a walking dog bumps into a stick, "they say in Japan.
Still more, people are likely to run into a car without paying much attention these days. We tend to ged tired with the hustle and bustle of the city, but why don't you stop the pendulum of the timepiece in your mind for a while and look around you from different angles?
You will see meny "things" here and there which interest us. The "things" have their own faces. Some are angry; some, smiling and some seem distressed. They rise above the human world and always stand still liiking at us. Their facial expressions we feel as such sometimes abode in natural phenomenon, other times, in tools created by human beings.
When I see such faces in the street. I find myself saying "Hello, nice to see you again."
When I was a child, I saw interesting things which I mistook as if they were the faces of people or animals at such places as stains. on the seiling of an old family house in the country or breaking parts of paper sliding doors or wooden boards of the outside wals.
I was surprised with such strange and interesting things I happened to encounter. Those found memories and experiences are the basis of my strange point to take photographs of these "POKER FACE." When I walk around searching for "POKER FACES," I feel as if I have gone back to my innocent and inquisitive childhood days.
I am always looking forward to my friends, "POKER FACES", waiting for me in the streets anywhere in the world.
I would like to make a new collection of photos inlcuding new "POKER FACES" in the future. I have a dream that I may be able to shoot a photo of "POKER FACE" with the earth and the moon as eyes and the sun as the mouth by flying myself in the universe. A toast to "POKER FACE" friends in my town, in the world and in the universe.

The other side of creation

Portrait pictures can show not only stories and details about a subject but also reveal the photographer.
The distance between the camera and the subject, the state of affairs at that moment…, Retracing the situation of a photographer is dne of the pleasures when meeting his pictures.
Mr. Bando Isao-he shoots close-ups of "FACES" embedded in the sceanary of a plain street.
At first glance "FACES" are merely pieces of such streets, but they show special expression to only him.
His works "POKER FACE" was born from a close relationship between them and himself.
Mr.Bando is an experienced designer of packaging but when he is off duty, he frequently goes out with camera in hand. He walks around the town in pursuit of "FACES".
He calls the act "The other side of creation", He says that there's a special flow of time and another world appears when he meets them.
Street THING-they were born as mass-produced industrial articles.
"Please leave me alone…"
"Hey, take me, take the picture!"
When he finds their individuality amongst their anonymousness, he says he feel things are speaking directly to his heart.
It's just like a puzzle in which one can discover funny elements named "FACES" amongst the common atmosphere of the "STREET". Even a desolate scenary can be fresh when you change your viewpoints.
Design can appear from the acts such as "walking" and "clipping", and in this the skill of creative eyes,"sorting out" hides.

The monthly magazine of interior decoration「DREAM」No.357

Isao Bando, grafico e fotografo giapponese, ha scattato decine di fotografia di facce dalle sembianze umane che si travano su oggetti di uso quotidiano. La sua collezione, che e stata esposta per la prima volta nel 1994, si intitola Poker faces (facce toste). Se vuoi saperme di piu, rivolgiti a Isao Bando, The Daimaru Inc., Corporate Merchandising Div., ・・

POKERFACES

A tree is not a tree but a nose, and smokestacks are a silentrow of sleeping sentinels.

For Isao Bando, the walls really do have ears.And eyes and noses and mouths.This Japanesephotographer has beenseeing faces in the world araund him for over 20 years-in a cardboardbox,astreetlight,amanhole cover. Sone of the 10,000 whimsical images he has created from ordinary street scenes and unremarkable object are presented in his book,Poker Faces. Bando constructs personalities from everyday scenes and fortuitous juxtapo-sitiones and gives them representational titls, which we have retained here. He shoots with a NikonF3 or FE, fitted with a 55 mm f/2.8 Micro -Nikkor or a 35-105mm f3.5-4.5Nikkor zoom lens, on Kodak Ektachrom 100 film. He has a very Zen-like attitude towerd his passion. "It's like fishing," he says. "It's great if you catch the big one but somtimes ther is only a smol one."
With two books under his belt, one portraing faces found in italy and the other those in Japan.
Bando's next goal is to travel the globe flusing out more of these beings that "are quietly hiding ther poker faces on street corners around the world."-S.F

Popular PHOTOGRAPHY april 1998 N.Y.