This personal essay recounts how the author rediscovered Kyoto about a decade ago, photographed it every weekend, and continued sharing Kyoto’s beauty with a global audience. It reflects on recovery from a serious illness in 2011, memorable encounters in Arashiyama, and the rise of Kyoto in global rankings—while announcing the submission of selected works to PIXTA and PHOTOLIBRARY for international use and purchase.

June 15, 2016
About ten years ago, during the autumn foliage season, I rediscovered Kyoto, though it was my third time experiencing it.
Since then, I visited Kyoto and took photographs every weekend.
In 2011, when I suffered a life-threatening illness and spent seven months hospitalized, thanks, by a strange turn of fate, to doctors who had studied at Kyoto University’s Faculty of Medicine and to wonderful nurses, I was fortunate enough to make a full recovery and be discharged.
That was on December 16, 2011.
The autumn foliage season had already passed, yet there were still leaves remaining at Shimogamo Shrine.
The following spring, I wanted to photograph all the cherry blossoms of Kyoto, Shiga, and Nara.
At that time, I wrote to Woody Allen: rainy Paris is fine, but rainy Kyoto is just as good as Paris, if not better.
Until then, Kyoto had not even entered the world’s top ten.
I continued sending Kyoto’s photographs and my own words out to the world.
The fantastical, uninhibited conversations with Ieyasu, Hideyoshi, and Nobunaga that later became a Toyota commercial were also things I transmitted at that time.
I may well be one of the people who visits Arashiyama more than anyone else in the world, and that year, in the corridor of Daikaku-ji Temple, I met an energetic man and woman in their early thirties who said they had come from New York.
When I asked their professions, they said they worked in editorial jobs at a magazine publisher.
“That’s a good job,” I replied, and when I asked how long they were staying in Kyoto, they answered that that day was the day they would return home.
But they said they still had plenty of time.
When I asked where they were going next, they said they had not decided.
So I spoke to them.
The location would be the exact opposite direction, but go to Shoren-in in Higashiyama and look at its garden.
In that garden, there is the answer to what it means to live, to die, and what peace is.
When I first visited, I wept aloud.
My tears would not stop, I told them.
They opened a map, confirmed the location, and said, “We’ll go there now.”
Before long, Kyoto entered the world’s top ten (10th place).
The next year it was 5th, the following year it was 1st, and last year it remained 1st again in succession (and it was the unrivaled number one).
I laugh and tell people around me that it was I who made Kyoto number one in the world.
My photographs had grown to tens of thousands, and they were simply sleeping inside my PC.
A friend once told me, “Someday I’ll build your own photo gallery.”
The other day, I learned that there are large photo-selling sites, and that various companies use them for pamphlets and the like.
Because it is far cheaper than hiring a professional photographer, they are thriving.
The best thing would be to post my photos there and have people around the world use them for various purposes.
Thinking so, I submitted 20 photos to PIXTA for review in April and 5 photos to PHOTOLIBRARY for review in May.
Fortunately, I passed the strict screening, and now 10 photos are listed on PIXTA and 3 are listed on PHOTOLIBRARY.
Please purchase them and use them for various purposes.
If many photographs sell, needless to say, my life will become easier as well ( ´艸｀ )
And when you think about it, continuing to take photographs does cost a fair amount of money.
If they catch the eyes of people around the world and are purchased, perhaps one day I may be able to go photograph Paris, which I love ( ´艸｀ )
Photo materials: PHOTOLIBRARY
https://www.photolibrary.jp/img467/313344_4453839.html
https://www.photolibrary.jp/img469/313344_4475336.html
https://www.photolibrary.jp/img467/313344_4453847.html
https://pixta.jp/photo/22558733
https://pixta.jp/photo/22558426
https://pixta.jp/photo/22558338
https://pixta.jp/photo/22279841
https://pixta.jp/photo/22175085
https://pixta.jp/photo/22175054
https://pixta.jp/photo/22081882
https://pixta.jp/photo/22081651
https://pixta.jp/photo/21718887
https://pixta.jp/photo/21718884
https://pixta.jp/photo/21718884
https://pixta.jp/photo/21718393