Hamamura was born and grew up on a solitary island in Japan. He graduated from Bunka College of Fashion in Tokyo. When he started taking photos, he moved to London for a year, where he took many pictures of party people in East London. Now he lives and works in New York. He tells EYEMAZING, in his own words, about his images:

I was born in Japan. While living in London I began photographing. My first subjects were club kids, especially the gay and lesbian regulars of the nightclub scene. They shine the most when going out.They are dressed up so that their real selves bloom. And it’s as if they are Hollywood players. They are alive in these clubs, more than at any other time. I was charmed by their energy, and was inspired to take their portraits. After I left London, I came to New York. (I live in NY now.) My interest is in photographing a person and a time. However beautiful it may be as a picture, a photograph that evokes neither a time nor nostalgia does not strike the right chord with me. I also have a concept in mind when I take a photograph. I am recording interesting people who have character. I think that I want those who see my work to always feel a time and nostalgia from my photograph. It is said of a photograph with depth that it’s meaning emerges more and more, even over 10 years or 20 years. I regard a photo as maturing in the same way as a body maturing; time flows between its setting and the world. The progress of time can touch a person’s heart. A movement or motion of the heart is a hot thing, a pleasant thing. Each feeling becomes the past as a recollection, and that’s how nostalgia is born. My photography leaves an impression of a time and strives to value the sentimental, melancholic feelings that simultaneously come into view. It is the current of the times that have happened around me. It is the present.

Text By Kiyotaka Hamamura