Ryōan-ji is a place that rejects everything
the moment one attempts to “capture” it.

The stone garden, the light, the silence—
none of them accept the photographer’s intention.

If anything can be preserved in this place,
it is not scenery,
but only the “time” that undeniably existed in that moment.

This photo collection is a record of what I have pursued at Ryōan-ji for many years—
a convergence that occurred not by chance,
but by necessity.

The angle of the light, the density of the air,
the presence of people and the instant of their disappearance,
and the time in which nothing happened.

Had even one of these elements been missing,
this form could not have come into being.

This is not the result of technical skill.
Nor is it the product of staging or direction.

It is simply the accumulation of standing there,
continuing to release the shutter
without breaking the silence—
and that accumulation became this single volume.

Within my own photographic history,
this marks one point of arrival.