'relaxin' with Patti Smith' by Yoshie Tomingaga - relax November 2001

Relaxin’ with PATTI SMITH
Photography | Yoshie Tominaga (FEMME)

July 28, the second day of Fuji Rock Festival, drew the largest attendance in the festival’s history, approximately 32,000 people. The destination for many people was Patti Smith and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. In addition to the so-called rave-loving music fans in their twenties, there was also a sense that longtime fans in their thirties and older—thinking, “this time of all times, I can’t just sit this one out”—had gathered in large numbers from all over the country. Around 3 p.m., people began making a mass movement toward the Green Stage. Amid cheers and heat from the tightly packed audience pressing forward and filling every space, Patti Smith’s stage began at 3:30 p.m.

4:30 p.m. The live performance ended, the backstage confusion ended, the mere ten-minute photography session ended, and after packing away the equipment, looking over suddenly, there sat Yoshie Tominaga, motionless and stunned on the grass. She had lost her words. A photographer who had admired Patti Smith, admired her, admired her, and continued asking questions about the meaning of life—this was, in a sense, the moment when she burned herself out, and at the same time encountered something.

Chasing Patti Smith… Photographer Yoshie Tominaga
Feelings contained within only two presses of the shutter.