Kazu Mori: Photography Beyond and Inline with Skating

Air: Whether while inline skating, Mogul jumping on skis in the winter or in Leonardo's futurist drawings of corkscrew like flying machines, man's search to be a bird and fly beyond the bounds of the planet expresses in many forms.

One recent night past 10pm and the third beer, Kazu went outside with Mike Torres to the corner of Bruckner Blvd and Alexander Ave. Kazu lay prone in the street near a fire hydrant. He and his friend had scouted a small edge to hold the tree's dirt in, paved with cobblestones and a fire hydrant that looked interesting. Kazy immediately went to the action spot. The street did not concern him nor did the cars racing home to Manhattan. Quite naturally a friend and I positioned ourselves to set up a human barrier to protect our friend, who just went were he had to go to get the perfect spot to capture a move. A series of attempts by the skater Mike Torres insued. Kazu , much like a film director, would nod let's do it again. This went on for about 15 runs at the Fire Hydrant.

Above Jon Ortiz balances in mid air

What makes a man one label. Is A-Rod a baseball player, Is O'bama THE President are you a Dad or a Mom or a son or a daughter, or are we more? Labels can be misleading, blinding and prejudiced. We are more than labels that identify one aspect of who we are and pigeonhole us.
Kazu is a great inline skater that has traveled the United States twice on 90 day sojourns North, South, East and West. This grateful, smiling, open and very serious and impressive spirit of a man and his family who live 45 minutes north of Tokyo have seen more of the US than 99% of us Americans have. Is he American for these moments, or just a man?
Is he a photographer? You bet he is. Are you a photographer because you shoot your cat in umpteen positions all meaningless and boring? No , you are not.

Above a very personal portrait by Kazu of friends with their child. Kids seem to bring out a unique side of Kazu.

As with any artist, his skill has been honed. Not a honing with a jagged coarse stone trying to sharpen but blunting a craft in a scholastic BFA or MFA program, but a fine honing by repetitive seeing and attentiveness. Similar to how times weight upon steps trodden upon one pace at a time and eroded and encoded with your past foot prints, Kazu's footprints and street marks are all over his camera and his body and etched in his camera's eye. He has absorbed a once foreign tool used specifically to capture his movements over 3 decades ago and emerged from above the skates as a fine photographer. This is more than a story of an inline skater turned Photographer. It is the story of a man, his journey and the family of men he touches, teaches and embraces on his path. In a way, his work is very much like that of Edward Steichen's famous pictures that reveals both the unique and universal humanity inside us all.

Lulu, pictured in the shot above emphasis our expansiveness, desolation and loneliness as we are enveloped by our greater host and companion-nature.
Kazu captures intimate portraits and exhilarating moments of inline skaters, portraits of friends and family of a larger parent, birthed in an immaculate way by a goddess beyond one woman wombs. He jumps high into the sky touching something more.
Aren't we all trying to reach the apex of ourselves and brake from the shackles of our daily grind. Kazu does this daily for himself, his friends, his family and for us all. What do you do for your family of mankind.

Thanks to Ray Mendez and Parlour productions for bringing Kazu and his family to the South Bronx and for exhibiting this artist in NYC and introducing us.

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