About a decade ago, when I was still living in Tokyo, I found layer upon layer of spiderwebs strung among the trees of a park where I walked almost every day. It had rained the day before, and the light from the morning sun was illuminating them. If it had been the commonplace sight of water droplets clinging to threads of spider silk, looking like a pearl necklace, I definitely wouldn't have taken a photograph. I’m a nonconformist by nature. Even though there were no water droplets, the spider silk glittered with moisture. Some kind of instinct kicked in at that moment. I had a friend who lived nearby who was ordinarily a late riser, but when I woke her up and told her that I needed someone to help, she rushed right over. We added a black background to make the spiderweb stand out, and I took my photos. I probably just took the photos because I thought that they would be interesting, and I didn't realize how they would turn out (vol.3-1).
But I had a feeling something exciting was going to happen. If I had simply returned home and had breakfast, that would have been the end of it. But instead, for just a brief moment that morning, there was a concerto of light. Apparently some species of spiders eat their own webs, so I still look back on this as something miraculous.

When I shot sakura, I drew lines in the baked sand karesansui landscape in my garden, and the petals nestled splendidly into the grooves (vol.2-1). Successfully visualizing the flow of the cherry blossoms through my lens depended on figuring out the timing for when they would fall, and coordinating with the weather.
When I shot icing process, I placed containers filled with water on my terrace at night, and the next morning I photographed the freezing process in natural light (vol.1-1). What I photograph are natural phenomena, but I think of myself as collaborating with nature. My heart is racing as I take my photos. But I don’t for a moment consider any of these works to be man-made. This is because we are also a part of nature. I feel like I, too, am simply an adjunct in a situation where nature is left to do what it does.

I found an insight I really liked in a collection of essays by biologist Professor Shin-ichi Fukuoka.

He observed that the common ground between art and science remains completely unchanged. That is the sense of wonder at the world’s delicacy and the exquisite nature of its balance, and the ability to sense the beauty that lies therein
(Shin-ichi Fukuoka, Geijutsu to kagaku no aida [Between Art and Science], Kirakusha).

These words seem to accurately articulate the chaoscosmos series. Professor Fukuoka arrived at this position from a scientific point of view. In contrast, I had no scientific knowledge or knowledge of material phenomena, but visual signs led me to notice the coexistence of chaos and cosmos. First, there is a premonition, and perhaps what brings about that premonition even before pressing the shutter is a kind of “sense.” Just as scientists describe the world in the language of science, I want to get closer to the workings of nature by taking photographs. This doesn't change even when I’m taking portraits of people. When I’m taking portraits, I’m trying to get closer to the workings of nature rather than the ways of humankind. Whether I’m photographing people in traditional clothing or fallen cherry blossoms, the feeling is no different.

Peering through the viewfinder, I capture a tiny fraction of the entire universe with my own senses. It's such a personal and exciting experience that I almost feel guilty about doing this on my own. You could say that it’s a secret ritual. Doing this gives me unbridled joy. I take my photographs and then spend time choosing those that I can share. The process is the most important thing. Similarly, life itself is a process from birth to death.

As the world continues to change, I’ve begun shooting in digital, although I would rather not. I even scrapped the darkroom that I had at home, and my only prints are archives. I’m not making any more original prints, so the only ones that exist are those that I printed already. I believe that photographs are not merely data; they are physical objects. In digital, it’s hard to create prints that can be cherished, but digital certainly has its advantages, such as the ability to print on virtually any material. I attempt this every time I have an exhibition, and this time I intend to print on materials like glass, metal, and bamboo paper. It's important that the textures of the works on display make people want to touch them. Personally, I would like viewers to be allowed to touch them.

I am at my happiest when something surprising or unexpected happens. I enjoy the challenge of printing on new materials, and with this exhibition I also aim to smash the conventional idea of a frame. Above all, I believe that what I’m doing must excite me.

When I exhibited sakura, many people said that from that point onward they would be more interested in the fallen petals than in the blossoming flowers (vol.2-2).
I believe that all art, whether painting or sculpture, begins with awareness. What is interesting is that in the act of taking a photograph through a camera—a machine—there is a reality on the other side. In this latest exhibition, viscosity, people might not be able to figure out what was photographed. All of the photos are of natural materials found in our everyday lives, but the way they are viewed brings awareness. Viscous liquids fall in a spiral pattern, and I only became aware of this after taking photographs. When I photographed this spiraling liquid, I captured its ongoing trajectory (vol.3-2). These lines are, so to speak, afterimages of gravity. I was ecstatic to think that I might have made it possible to see gravity. And then when I was photographing another viscous material, it began to look like something cosmic, with no discernible sense of scale (vol.3-3). A shape in which the entire object and parts of it look the same is called a fractal, and this scene that I photographed indoors looks like the surface of the moon.
There are images that look like human faces, and others that look like all sorts of animals (vol.3-4). I’m always surprised when I look at the photos I've taken.

From a fluid dynamics perspective, it seems that humans perceive beauty through a combination of gravity, inertia, and viscosity. For example, the sight of hair flowing in a breeze meets all these three conditions. I photograph this by adjusting the three basic camera settings: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. For example, when photographing rain, different shutter speeds result in entirely different depictions of rain. At the same time, this also means that I'm capturing something that is invisible to our eyes. I recently realized that I can emphasize and extract viscosity by carefully combining the camera controls. However, the objective isn't to extract viscosity. I don’t have a particular objective, and I’m not seeking a solution, but it brings me joy to draw nearer to, or discover, the workings of nature in one form or another.

A major factor is that since my forties, I have traveled to remote areas all over the world. By choosing only places untouched by civilization and immersing myself in nature, I am constantly being made aware of what it is to be human. There are messages—questions, really—from nature and from the people who live there. Over and over again I have been asked, "What does happiness mean to you?” What they have is not an occupation, but a way of life that’s rooted in the land. It's not that cities are bad; I know that there’s a certain kind of excitement to be found in a city. However, I think that in cities the idea that “this is happiness” is pushed on us, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to cultivate happiness for ourselves.

The themes for all my projects connect to the question, “What is happiness?” This is also true of chaoscosmos. I want to get closer to the workings of nature because this brings me joy. I began taking photos for this exhibition, chaoscosmos vol. 3 -visible viscosity- more than ten years ago, and I still gain new insights every time I look back at them.

Life is a process, and there is really no solution or objective. But as I go through that process of living and eventually dying, if I encounter many things along the way that I could never have predicted, I can surely say that I lead a happy life.