This is a 41-minute photo collection created from three miraculous clear days in the rainy season, from June 10 to June 12, 2026.
Nagai Botanical Garden on June 10.
Kyoto Botanical Garden on June 11.
Nagai Botanical Garden again on June 12.
For the final finale, I placed photographs of Kyoto Botanical Garden on May 20, when the rose garden was in full bloom under clear skies.
I also included a remarkable photograph of a newt that appeared on a pink hydrangea at Nagai Botanical Garden, as well as views of the Seto Inland Sea and the Onomichi Channel taken from the top of the Onomichi ropeway.
The flowers and greenery of the botanical gardens.
The atmosphere around the water.
The light that appears during a clear spell in the rainy season.
And then, the wide view of the Seto Inland Sea seen from Onomichi.
Together, they open this work toward the larger landscape and spirit of Japan.
The music is Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, performed by the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Akio Watanabe.
Akio Watanabe is a truly great conductor.
There is no ornamentation in this performance.
There is no exaggeration.
And yet it possesses the power to grasp the core of the music with precision and to make the whole work breathe on a grand scale.
Sibelius’s Second Symphony is music of silence, earth, sky, light, and life that gradually opens toward a vast final release.
That music resonated with the botanical gardens in the clear intervals of the rainy season in a surprisingly natural way.
The hydrangeas of Nagai Botanical Garden.
The quiet dignity of Kyoto Botanical Garden.
A small life appearing on a pink hydrangea.
The Seto Inland Sea and the Onomichi Channel seen from the heights of Onomichi.
And finally, Kyoto Botanical Garden on May 20, with its rose garden in full bloom under clear skies.
This 41-minute work is not merely a sequence of photographs.
It is a work in which the light and life of Japanese botanical gardens, the deep breath of Japanese landscapes, and the musical spirit created by Akio Watanabe and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra resonate together within the grand flow of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2.
The photographs do not explain the music.
The music is not subordinate to the photographs.
Photographs and music face each other as independent arts, and eventually create one vast time together.
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 and landscapes, there is light and life worthy of the world’s admiration.
Early summer, 2026.
Three clear days in the rainy season.
Nagai Botanical Garden, Kyoto Botanical Garden, Onomichi, and the rose garden in full bloom under clear skies.
I gathered all of them into one 41-minute work, together with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 performed by Akio Watanabe and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.