JAPAN

Japan. For most of us the associations flow freely – cherry blossoms, Mount Fuji, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Buddhist temples. Japan of course is all that but there’s another Japan that exists alongside the tea ceremonies, bullet trains, Geishas, sushi, anime and koi swimming in a pool in a Zen garden.

I was looking for that “other” Japan. – a country informed by minimalism, by ritual, by a soft clarity in the early morning light. A land poised between the forces of nature and the innovations of technology. A Japan that was the antithesis of my life in the United States.

The Japan of Murakami, Mishima, Kawabata, and Kurosawa is all around you. It’s present in every tea room with their tatami mats, in the bamboo groves near Kyoto, and in the reserved, mannered and punctual behavior of virtually everyone you meet.

#Japan photography #Cherry blossoms #Mount Fuji #Bhuddist temples #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #Murakami #Kawabata #kurosawa #Mishima #Zen gardens