A photo collection taken at Kyoto Botanical Gardens on June 10, 2021.
This work records the rich forms of life that existed in the botanical garden in early summer, including irises, hydrangeas, lotus leaves, lilies, the fountain area, swallowtail butterflies, and cabbage white butterflies.
The music features Debussy performed by Aldo Ciccolini, Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words performed by Daniel Gortler, and Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues performed by Igor Levit.
June 10, 2021.
Kyoto Botanical Gardens.

The photographs from this day are not merely a record of a botanical garden.
They are the very record of my own time, from the period when I was almost possessed by Kyoto Botanical Gardens itself, by the flowers blooming there, and by the butterflies living there.

The central subjects of this day were irises and hydrangeas.
The season of roses had already passed, and the garden had entered the beautiful, moist season of early summer.

The quiet colors of the iris garden.
The hydrangeas of the botanical garden as they were at that time.
The shade beneath the lotus leaves.
The area around the fountain.
Lilies.
And the butterflies appearing among them.

I photographed swallowtail butterflies for a long time, without ever growing tired of them.
Two swallowtails absorbing calcium by the roadside.
And even the moment when two cabbage white butterflies mated in the shade of lotus leaves.
For me, swallowtail butterflies are deeply beloved beings.
Butterflies, like flowers, and sometimes even more than flowers, seem to reveal the whole of life in a single moment.

This year, I realized something anew.
The iris garden at Kyoto Botanical Gardens has been simplified compared with how it once was.
At Nagai Botanical Garden as well, a certain area of the hydrangea garden has been simplified.
I believe the former appearance was better.

In that sense, the photographs I took in 2021 are also precious records.
I kept photographing the beauty that certainly existed on that day, at that time, in that place.

A true painter, and a true photographer, inscribes his own time into his work.
That time is life.
It is one’s own existence, one’s own life, and the entirety of one’s philosophy.

For this work, I mainly used Debussy’s piano works performed by Aldo Ciccolini, and added Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words performed by Daniel Gortler, as well as Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues performed by Igor Levit.
The pieces are used in the following order:

Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, I. Prélude
Performed by Aldo Ciccolini

Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, II. Menuet
Performed by Aldo Ciccolini

Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, III. Clair de lune
Performed by Aldo Ciccolini

Claude Debussy: Suite bergamasque, IV. Passepied
Performed by Aldo Ciccolini

Felix Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words, No. 1 in E Major, Op. 19 No. 1
Performed by Daniel Gortler

Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 — Prelude No. 1 in C Major
Performed by Igor Levit

Claude Debussy: Deux Arabesques, No. 1
Performed by Aldo Ciccolini

I chose to begin with the Prélude from Suite bergamasque because, for me, it felt like entering Kyoto Botanical Gardens on that day once again.
The Menuet evokes the presence of the flowers.
Clair de lune overlaps with the quietness of the hydrangeas and the shade beneath the lotus leaves.
Passepied brings the movement of the butterflies and the air of early summer.
I placed Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words here because the flowers and butterflies of that day seemed to speak quietly of life, just like a song without words.
By placing Shostakovich’s Prelude No. 1 just before the final piece, the memory of this day gains not only beauty, but also a deeper sense of time and quiet reflection.
And the final Debussy Arabesque No. 1 returns this memory to an afterglow like the clear flow of water.

The Debussy performances are by Aldo Ciccolini.
Aldo Ciccolini is a name deeply familiar to me from the years when I listened to classical music every day.
In that sense, this music is not merely background music.
Here, the photographs of June 10, 2021, meet once again with the long memory of classical music that has lived within me.

And in the course of this reunion with Ciccolini, I also encountered Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words performed by Daniel Gortler and Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues performed by Igor Levit.
They seemed almost like music summoned by the photographs of that day.
Irises, hydrangeas, lotus leaves, butterflies, and the light of early summer by the water.
Together with Debussy, Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich, they have brought back the memory of June 10, 2021, at Kyoto Botanical Gardens as a new work.

This is a photo collection of Kyoto Botanical Gardens on June 10, 2021, recording irises, hydrangeas, lotus leaves, lilies, the fountain area, swallowtail butterflies, cabbage white butterflies, and the light of early summer by the water.
At the same time, it is a record of the time of life that I was looking at, on that day, at that moment, in that place.