Picasso of the Computer
Like the great Spanish artist Picasso, who could paint like Rembrandt before he reached his teens, Shinichi Honda got bored with the tradition of his art and went on to exploring the abstract.by Thomas Caldwell
The computer has been thought of by some as a satanic, evil device. As depicted in movies like Terminator, it is a machine that poses a threat to all of human civilization. If you're reading this magazine, though, chances are you don't feel that way. W ith all the wonderful tools that have come into being during the past decade ó tools specifically designed to further the human imagination ó the world seems to be on the verge of an era of creativity not seen since the Renaissance.
The events of the last century have sidetracked Japan from its traditional artistic ways. Only recently, at last economically developed and recovered from the destruction of World War II, is the nation devoting time to artistic endeavor. To the new gen eration of artists, such as photographer Shinichi Honda, 37, computers are not merely tools, but liberators.
Acclaimed world-wide for his portraits of celebrities (like Herbie Hancock, Bill Gates, Timothy Leary, and Mitch Kapor), Honda is somewhat of a philosopher and social critic as well. A native of Kyoto, he grew up in a family made up of an unlikely mix of artists, lawyers, and businessmen. Honda attributes his love of images to his grandfather. "He was a professor at Kyoto Art University, where he taught Japanese painting. Since the day I was born, I was surrounded by traditional Japanese images. But my mother was very ambitious, both for her children and herself." (She became one of Japan's first female assistant prosecutors.)
Honda's family wanted him to be a lawyer, but he failed the law school entrance examination. "In hindsight, it was the best thing that could have happened to me, " he says with a broad grin. Like many of his generation who grew up in the '60s, Honda re belled and decided to become an artist.
But most artists in Japan, then as now, find they have to work for one of Japan's large advertising agencies in order to earn a decent living. Honda started as a dispatch boy for a photo studio because he wanted to learn photography. "Being a photograp her looked damned easy compared to practicing law." He kept pestering management to make him a photographer until, impressed by his determination, they give him a chance to be an assistant. After one year, he was handling assignments on his own. Becoming a recognized photographer after only one year is almost unheard of in Japan, and, at age 21, Honda became one of the youngest professional photographers in Osaka.
He went on to become one of the world's top commercial and portrait photographers. While living and working in New York, he began manipulating photographic images with computers when he desperately wanted to change the texture of a photograph he was no t very pleased with. "I was also becoming bored with only being able to capture what I could see through the lens. I didn't want my imagination to be so limited." Honda started out using a UNIX workstation with Hyperpaint to manipulate images. Now, he scans his photos into a Macintosh Quadra 950 and does his magic with Adobe Photoshop, Stratavision Pro, Fractal Painter, and Kai's Power Tools. Honda's images have ap peared in many magazines, but he is most famous for the imaginative cover shots he comes up with every month for Asahi Pasocon.
Before taking a portrait, Honda studies his subject's business, personal history, and hobbies. And before he starts shooting at his Kagurazaka studio, he first sits down with the person over a cup of coffee to gauge their personality and what makes the m tick. The results can be astounding.
Unlike most artists, who are content to just work on their craft, Honda is deeply interested in philosophy, science, and global social issues. He is able to talk in depth on most subjects, and is not afraid to let other people know what he thinks. "I'm not into small talk. I find that very, very boring."
He became "enlightened" during a photo assignment in Indonesia some 17 years ago. "I realized then that far too many Japanese feel inferior to foreigners and Western Civilization. In Indonesia they spoke English as badly I did, so we were on an equal p laying field. I had grown up feeling inferior and I hadn't realized it until then." Honda says that his generation was born in what he terms the "cultural gap period" of post-war Japan. "There is no point of moral perfection for the Japanese people to rea ch for these days. Our idea of God has become an American family in a 1960s sitcom."
As for the Information Superhighway, Honda thinks it is a good thing but, he points out that Japanese culture is still rebuilding itself after a century of neglect and may not be ready to hold its own on the nets yet . "There is still too much cultural inferiority in Japan. If we don't overcome that, we will be run over by the rest of the world."
