A carefully selected photo collection created from three clear days in the rainy season, June 10–12, 2026, at Nagai Botanical Garden and Kyoto Botanical Garden. As the finale, it includes Kyoto Botanical Garden on May 20, when the rose garden was in full bloom under clear skies. Together with the music of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Akio Watanabe, the work brings together the light and life of Japanese botanical gardens and the musical spirit of Japan.

From June 10 to June 12, 2026.
They were three miraculous clear days in the rainy season.
Nagai Botanical Garden on June 10.
Kyoto Botanical Garden on June 11.
Nagai Botanical Garden again on June 12.
Centered on the photographs taken during these three days, I created a carefully selected photo collection.
Each photograph was composed to appear for four seconds.
Not too long.
Not too fleeting.
The expression of flowers, the breathing of trees, the shifting of light, the atmosphere around the water.
Within those four seconds, each of them rises quietly before the eye.
The music is performed by the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Akio Watanabe.
Akio Watanabe is a truly great conductor.
I felt that once again, deeply.
There is no ornamentation in Watanabe’s conducting.
There is no exaggeration.
And yet he possesses the power to grasp the core of the music with precision and to make the whole work breathe on a grand scale.
That music resonated magnificently with the scenes of the botanical gardens that appeared in the clear intervals of the rainy season.
Nagai Botanical Garden on June 10.
Although it was already the rainy season, the sky was clear, the light was pure, and the entire garden was filled with the life of early summer.
The hydrangeas stood at the very center of the season.
They were not flowers merely waiting for rain.
They bloomed as if they themselves contained the memory of rain.
The flowers, the greenery, the waterside scenes—everything carried the special radiance that appears only during a clear spell in the rainy season.
Kyoto Botanical Garden on June 11.
Although it was also a clear day in the rainy season, there was a quiet dignity there, different from that of Nagai Botanical Garden.
The presence of the trees.
The silence of the flowers.
The depth of the air.
Kyoto Botanical Garden possesses a beauty born from the accumulation of time.
That beauty is not showy.
But when one looks at it closely, it reaches the heart deeply and surely.
Nagai Botanical Garden on June 12.
By returning once again to Nagai Botanical Garden, the structure of these three days gained a larger breath.
It was the same place, and yet it had a completely different expression from June 10.
A botanical garden is the same place, and yet it is never the same place twice.
When the light changes, the flowers change.
When the air changes, the greenery changes.
When the heart of the photographer changes, the world itself changes.
This photo collection of three days is not merely a record of botanical gardens.
It is a record of an irreplaceable time.
A clear spell that came almost by chance in the midst of the rainy season.
Flowers, trees, and light revealed themselves within that brief interval.
And for the final finale, I placed the Kyoto Botanical Garden in full bloom from May 20.
This was not a mere addition.
It was a necessary finale to bring the three clear days of June 10 to June 12 to their conclusion.
Kyoto Botanical Garden on May 20 was in full bloom.
The flowers of that day stood at the summit of the season as it moved toward early summer.
By placing that full-bloom scene at the end, the entire work moves from the clear intervals of the rainy season toward the completion of early summer, still carrying the lingering traces of spring.
It is like the final movement of a symphony.
The music of Akio Watanabe and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra suited this structure perfectly.
The music does not explain the photographs.
The photographs are not subordinate to the music.
Photographs and music face each other as independent arts.
And eventually, together, they create one vast world.
That is what this work is.
Akio Watanabe is a conductor who deserves to be spoken of far more justly.
The music he created with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra contains a sincerity, a structural strength, and a spiritual depth that are distinctly his own.
A truly great conductor is not someone who makes sound appear showy.
A truly great conductor is someone who allows the essence of the music to rise quietly, yet decisively.
Akio Watanabe was precisely such a conductor.
The three clear days in the rainy season, from June 10 to June 12.
Nagai Botanical Garden and Kyoto Botanical Garden.
And, placed at the end, Kyoto Botanical Garden in full bloom on May 20.
This carefully selected photo collection is a work in which the light and life of Japan’s botanical gardens and the musical spirit of Japan, as performed by Akio Watanabe and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, resonate within the same time.
As I created this work, I thought once again:
There is still beauty in Japan that has not yet been fully spoken of.
There are still musicians in Japan who have not yet been properly recognized.
And in Japan’s botanical gardens, there is light and life worthy of the world’s admiration.
I wanted to preserve all of it in photographs.
June 2026.
Three clear days in the rainy season.
I gathered that miracle into one photo collection, together with the music of Akio Watanabe and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.