The clouds clear, and light returns to the city.
A piano begins to play, and the person I was long ago returns with it.
Osaka, November 3, 2026.
The morning had been perfectly clear, but by the time I finished my work and set out with my camera, clouds had covered the sky.
Yet as I photographed Grand Green Osaka from a different vantage point than usual, the sky suddenly began to clear.
I arranged the 133 photographs taken that day to appear for ten seconds each.
Even then, the sequence was not long enough to accompany the music, so I added twenty-odd photographs taken on October 29 and October 25, completing this photographic work in 4K.
Osaka’s autumn, captured on three different days, comes together within a continuous span of music.
I had chosen the musical accompaniment several days earlier: all twelve of Chopin’s Études, Op. 10, performed by Maurizio Pollini.
A few days before, the opening Étude in C major had come on YouTube, taking me back to the years when the sound of the piano filled my days.
Just as my final year of high school began, the life I had been promised came to an end.
My anticipation of studying for the university entrance examinations vanished in an instant.
I spent my days listening to classical music on NHK-FM, from morning until night.
Later, after leaving home, I scraped a living doing construction labor in Tokyo.
Even then, I went to Tokyo Bunka Kaikan in Ueno to hear Hiroko Nakamura and André Watts.
After choosing Osaka as the stage for my life, I kept attending the Osaka concerts of visiting pianists, from rising talents to established masters.
In those days, the piano occupied almost all of my musical attention and affection.
And no one made a greater impact on me than Pollini.
When he reappeared after a long silence with this album, the impact of his playing was unlike anything I had experienced before or have experienced since.
Here, photographs of the city today meet music that has remained within me across the years.
Whether you know Osaka well or have never visited, I hope these images bring you its light—and something of one person’s life lived with music.
I could not begin photographing beneath the clear morning sky.
But as I continued, the sky cleared before me.
Photography dates: November 3, October 29, and October 25, 2026
Location: Umeda, Osaka—the North Yard and the Grand Green Osaka area
Photographic sequence: 133 photographs taken on November 3, supplemented by twenty-odd photographs taken on October 29 and October 25
Display time: Ten seconds per photograph
Video: 4K
Music: Frédéric Chopin, Twelve Études, Op. 10—complete
Piano: Maurizio Pollini
Photography, text, and video composition: MIKIO KISARA