From an Osaka-based photographer who has captured Kyoto more times than anyone else, this essay reflects on Kyoto’s autumn foliage, the discipline of continual observation, and the dilemma of sharing art in the digital age.
It explores photography as a form of art shaped by devotion, proximity, and responsibility.

Since I live in Osaka, it goes without saying that there is no need for me to stay overnight in Kyoto, Shiga, or Nara..
2016-11-23.
This year’s autumn leaves in Kyoto, unlike last year, are very good, as they usually are. Last year, after receiving a message from my younger sister saying that everyone from my hometown schools of Yuriage Elementary and Junior High wanted to see me, I attended a reunion. Since then, I think of everyone from time to time. Wherever I go, I find myself wanting to show them this year’s Kyoto autumn leaves as well. As readers know, when it comes to photographing Kyoto, I am the world’s best photographer. This is because not only do I photograph Kyoto in all four seasons with exactly the same gaze as the truly wonderful painter Tadashi Ishimoto uses when he paints, but also because my number of visits is the highest in the world. Taking Tenryu-ji in Arashiyama as an example, as I have mentioned several times, by May of this year my number of visits had exceeded fifty. In the sense that there is no such photographer anywhere else in the world, I am also the world’s best..
Once, Ken Domon stayed at an inn in front of Muro-ji Temple in order to photograph it in winter and continued his work there..
Since I live in Osaka, it goes without saying that there is no need for me to stay overnight in Kyoto, Shiga, or Nara..
Moreover, from my home I can reach most places in Kyoto within one hour..
To begin with, rail access in the Kansai economic zone was superior to that of the Tokyo metropolitan area..
Between Osaka and Kyoto, leading Japanese railway companies such as JR, Hankyu, Keihan, and Kintetsu operate limited express trains at average intervals of fifteen minutes..
This year, at the reunion mentioned at the beginning, I was reunited with Mr. A, with whom I had been very close. He had become a fine person. That was only natural, as he had joined SONY after graduating from a national technical college, helped establish a factory in Taiwan, and then lived his professional life in Singapore. As previously mentioned, the president of SONY until a few years ago was my senior..
Above all, having been something of an audio enthusiast in my youth, I was also a member of the SONY camp. That is why all of my single-lens reflex cameras are SONY. Now I shoot with the α99, one of the world’s finest cameras..
I think my photographs are wonderful, even by my own standards. I would like to show these photographs to everyone in my hometown, but I read online commentary saying that because there are unbelievable villains inhabiting the internet world, people whose PC skills are not complete should avoid uploading photos. It goes without saying that I should not upload my photographs, which are now art in themselves. I am currently pondering how best to show them to people around the world. This is because I want everyone in my hometown and people around the world to view all of my photographs as one would read a subscribed book..
To be continued..