When I looked up at the surface, light pouring down from the cosmos was illuminating me. It was the kind of light I normally wouldn’t even notice, yet in that moment it felt profoundly special—because I could sense everything at once: myself and the sea, the Earth, and the universe.

The post Lights #2 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

When I looked up at the surface, light pouring down from the cosmos was illuminating me. It was the kind of light I normally wouldn’t even notice, yet in that moment it felt profoundly special—because I could sense everything at once: myself and the sea, the Earth, and the universe.

The post Lights #1 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

One winter day in Okinawa, I was in the sea. A young male whale approached me. Expecting that something extraordinary might happen, I held up my camera—but the whale passed by without the slightest sign of noticing me. To him, I may have been nothing more than a small creature drifting there. In a sea where giants dwell, that is probably just an everyday occurrence.

The post Where the Giants Are | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

The sea taught me that I have no place there unless I can keep breathing. What remains is only the air I take in artificially and the breath I release. No matter how far my thoughts wander, there was an invisible border.

The post Breath #2 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

The sea taught me that I have no place there unless I can keep breathing. What remains is only the air I take in artificially and the breath I release. No matter how far my thoughts wander, there was an invisible border.

The post Breath #1 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

What we see and hear is not the whole story—this was the moment I truly felt that. In the waters of Izu, the creatures I had imagined as fierce and bloodthirsty appeared before me in a school of hundreds. Rather than coming toward me, they noticed my presence and immediately fled. Sharks are far more timid than one might expect—and so beautiful creatures.

The post Hammerhead | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

Drifting alone in a huge ocean—without a single sound—is a profoundly lonely and terrifying experience. But what if, in that moment, you could faintly sense them? In that solitary ocean, I was able to feel a connection with them, with the ocean, and with this planet.

The post Silence #3 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

Drifting alone in a huge ocean—without a single sound—is a profoundly lonely and terrifying experience. But what if, in that moment, you could faintly sense them? In that solitary ocean, I was able to feel a connection with them, with the ocean, and with this planet.

The post Silence #2 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

Drifting alone in a huge ocean—without a single sound—is a profoundly lonely and terrifying experience. But what if, in that moment, you could faintly sense them? In that solitary ocean, I was able to feel a connection with them, with the ocean, and with this planet.

The post Silence #1 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.

There are gains and losses for all people. Yet it is I who have chosen to stay ‘here’ and the accumulation of feelings and scars from the challenges I have taken on is exactly who I am today.
It is hard to see, but I also know that there is love.

My existence may be so small that no one notices it in the midst of the hustle and bustle, but it is a part of this gigantic world.
Then I tell myself that I am here.

I love the distant view of Tokyo around the time the lights go on.
My heart always vibrates when I think that there is someone in each and every tiny light where they live in the present by embracing love, hope, pain, despair, and everything else.

I am here. We are here.

The post Faint Light 09 | Original Photo Print appeared first on Aflo Gallery.