「おーい、そこには何かあるのかい?」と思わず聞きたくなる。あるいはお迎えを待つ行き止まりの風景みたいだ。観光をテーマに撮り続けている写真家の笹岡啓子。今回は、宮城県の松島、京都府の天橋立、広島県の宮島という浮世絵にもよく描かれる名勝地「日本三景」を訪れた。260 余の島が浮かぶ湾と美しい岬、天に昇る龍のごとく海を渡る松林、海の上に立つ厳島神社の赤い社。人々はこの世のものとは思われない風景に畏敬の念を抱き、わざわざ見に出かける。しかし笹岡は、そうした典型的な風景をほとんど撮らない。かといって、あえて観光地らしくない場所を撮るのでもない。生活圏から抜け出したはずの観光客の、自然との境界線上でどこか地に足の着かない不安定な姿や、あるいはひょっこり置かれたような違和感にカメラを向ける。流れからふっとはずれたような、そのどこでもない世界は、やがてそこに写る無名の人のたたずまいとともに、日常の世界と地続きにつながってくる。けれどふと見返せばやっぱり退屈な写真である。そこにしかなくて、その先には何もない。（白坂ゆり）

Works that made me want to cry," Hey! Is there actually anything out there?" Or look likesouls queuing to be escorted to the other side. Photographer Sasaoka Keiko takes pic-tures with sightseeing (kanko ) themes, and forthis series, visited Matsushima in Miyagi Pre-fecture, Amanohashidate in Kyoto Prefecture, and Miyajima in Hiroshima Prefecture, famous beauty spots dubbed the "Three Views of Japan" and often depicted in ukiyo-e prints. Abay with over 260 islands and a stunningly beautiful promontory, a line of pine trees resembling a flying dragon crossing the sea, the red shrine of Itsukushima Jinja floating on the sea: people revere these other-worldy scenes, and make special journeys to see them. Sasaoka however largely ignores such conventional views. Not that this means she goes out of her way to avoid touristy places. Rather she turns her lens to the uncertain fig-ures of tourists, who having supposedly escaped their everyday environment, and find-ing themselves on the borders of nature do not quite manage to keep a firm foothold, or to their air of being out of place, as if they'd just been dropped there. This world that is nowhere in particular, somehow deviating from the flow, is in due course connected con-tiguously with the everyday world, along with the figures of the nameless people captured there. Glancing back though, the inescapable conclusion is that these are indeed boring photographs: what you get is what you see, and nothing beyond.
--Shirasaka Yuri