One commenter even said “How did this get approved?”


In this day and age, protecting your privacy is becoming more and more difficult. And while there have been many genius ways to protect your private information, one controversial Japanese photographer has been making things difficult.

Fujifilm’s recent promotional video for the X100V camera features the work of Tatsuo Suzuki, a Japanese photographer. Suzuki’s portfolio contains a lot of street photography, and this was featured in the promotional video. But the video caused outrage amongst many commenters on YouTube, due to the way he takes his photos. Suzuki claims he wants to “take real pictures of real people” and as a result, he doesn’t appear to ask his photo subjects for any kind of permission to take their photo. Some commenters have even described his shooting style as ‘aggressively intrusive’.

Suzuki appears to take his pictures by approaching strangers and, often without saying a word, taking a close-up of their face. Understandably, many of his photo subjects don’t appear pleased with this arrangement and even in the video people can be seen actively trying to avoid the camera’s lens by ducking out of the way.

As a result of the backlash, Fujifilm have since deleted the official video from their channel, but you can watch a mirror upload here.

https://twitter.com/photorockwell/status/1224920297385496576

Taking pictures of people in public is a legal grey area in Japan, and so some Japanese netizens reacted negatively to the commercial.

“The people in the photos all looked disgusted!”
“The way he was taking the photos, he probably thought he was really cool. But this is really lame.”
“This is exactly how a voyeur would take photos. No one is enjoying having their picture taken. This is just gross.”
“The photographer is bad enough, but I can’t help but blame Fujifilm as well. How did this get approved?”

One Twitter user even had a personal experience with Suzuki and his photography.

“This guy also took a picture of me. Right in front of me, I told him “erase all those photos or I’ll go to the police”. He erased them reluctantly, saying “This isn’t voyeurism, it’s a photography technique”. I went to the police station, but they told me they couldn’t do anything about it. I was furious.”

Whether it is a legitimate style of photography or not, it’s important to consider other people’s privacy when out and about taking snaps. It’s unclear whether or not Suzuki intends to change his style of photography, however, as he has completely wiped his Twitter profile clean.

Fujifilm themselves released a statement regarding the video, saying:

“We sincerely apologise for any discomfort caused by the recent promotional video for the Fujifilm X100V. As of today, we have stopped the distribution of the video. We have listened to your feedback, and will work towards this not happening again in the future.”

Whether you disapprove of Suzuki’s invasive photography style, or appreciate his need to get a genuine candid shot of a stranger, one thing is for sure — Fujifilm will need to be more careful with what they put out in the future. And in completely unrelated news, if you are looking for a cheap place to stay and don’t care about privacy at all, here’s our SoraNews24 recommendation.

Sources: Hachima Kikou, Fujifilm
Featured image: No.J工場@YouTube
Top image: No.J工場@YouTube
Insert images: No.J工場@YouTube, Twitter@tatsuo2006
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