HARVEST

I first met the beekeeper Eric Bossick, the subject of this work, when I was polishing my motorcycle in front of the apartment I was living in at the time. I handed him a flyer for the photo exhibition I was participating in at the time, and he brought me a flyer for Shinya Tsukamoto's latest movie, “Tetsuo The Bullet Man.” The man who lived in front of my apartment for many years was the leading actor of this movie, “Tetsuo.” Since then, we've been going back and forth between each other's homes, but after moving each other a few years later, we were estranged for a while. In the fall of 2019, Eric suddenly invited me to a event of Honey wine called "Mead." He said that he made the mead. The first time I drank Eric's mead, it tasted pure and clear. When I spoke to him, he had started beekeeping along with mead making. This is to harvest honey, the raw material for mead. Why did Eric start beekeeping? He says he remembers his grandpa doing beekeeping when he was a child. The story was linked to my grandfather's memory, and I was driven by the urge to photograph it. In other words, I wanted to harvest them in photographs. If the bike I was polishing in front of my apartment 12 years ago was not a red BMW R100RS but a yellow one, I wonder if Eric would have called out to me. In any case, meeting Eric Bossick, who let me take these photos, is without a doubt most important harvest for me. 　 Kazuki Watanave