In the Flap of a Bird’s wing, Water Dries Up

Whether the soul in all things can be seen, and what it truly is, remains an eternal mystery. This series celebrates all forms of life. We are equally living a single life moving toward death.

I began taking photographs at the age of 20, by visiting small villages across Japan,
and while living on a ranch in Hokkaido and in an Ainu community—experiences that shaped my artistic direction.
Without a specific intention in mind, I decided on my destinations, followed my thoughts, and continued my journey while taking pictures.

In this series, people, animals, man-made objects, myself, and nature all have souls and emit life as living organisms, as if in an animistic worldview; comparing all life to a drop of rain and celebrating all life that may be short and fleeting.

The photographs were taken in Hokkaido, Okinawa (and its surrounding islands of Iriomote and Aguni), Kagoshima, Kikaijima, the Tōhoku region (Akita, Aomori, Nagano and Niigata), Tokyo, Osaka, Mount Kōya, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Gullfoss in Iceland, and the Azores of Macaronesia.

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In the Flap of a Bird’s wing, Water Dries Up

 A drop of rain plops down before my eyes. Then gradually becomes a deluge.
Each droplet forming a dot on the ground, and eventually a puddle.

 Raindrops start to evaporate the moment they fall.
From the moment of conception, we quietly, relentlessly, divided our cells,
tearing the amniotic sac to land on this earth.
I saw a mouse, badly beaten in a cowshed but desperately struggling to stay alive.
The life force seemed to rise, steam-like, from its entire body, its every cell.
Anything that possesses life will stake that life to retain it.

 In the 4.6 billion years of the planet’s history, we are like drops in a puddle.
Even so, the world, walking this earth, is fascinating.

In the flap of a bird’s wing, water dries up: a hymn to life.