“I have been lucky enough to find something that has kept my interest for an awfully long time. There have been times of incredible frustration but never boredom. As an artist I was looking for material that would sustain my interest for a long period of time. In the gardens I found endless subject matter …
We arrived in Kyoto on April 25th, 2007—one month after William had completed six weeks of radiation therapy after his second operation performed on Jan 9th of that year. His cancer had metastasized, and there were no more methods left to try to cure it. We didn’t know how much longer he could live… three …
For 1100 years Kyoto was the capital of Japan, the seat of the imperial court and the center of Japan’s traditional culture. Although it is not clear when the first garden arrangements were completed, literary evidence indicates that the tradition extends back at least twelve and a half centuries. Graced by a wealth of fine …
In the autumn of 1993, I began work in Kyoto on an entirely new series of images with the ultra large format 8×20 camera. These photographs would later become a hand-made, limited-edition book. The book of twelve copies was set in letter press type and bound accordion-style, in luxurious silks, by one of the oldest …
More than three centuries ago, when Kyoto was the capital of Japan, three magnificent gardens were created there for the imperial court . Today these three gardens—those of the Sento Imperial Palace (Sento Gosho), the Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura Rikyu), and the Shugakuin Detached Palace (Shugakuin Rikyu)—are among the most celebrated in the Japanese garden …
Yamagata Prefecture, with its soaring mountains and wide river valleys lies on the west side of Japan’s Tohoku district, some 250 miles north of Tokyo. In the spring of 1995, I was invited as ‘artist in residence’ to the Tohoku University of Art & Design in Yamagata City. Throughout the spring and summer months I …
The third set of images from the Kyoto garden series made with the 8×10 view camera. These gardens, reverently preserved and universally admired, stand as monuments to the skillful principles of Japanese garden and landscape art. I chose to photograph with an 8×10 view camera, because it interpreted the gardens with unparalleled precision. These images …
The second set of images from the Kyoto garden series made with the 8×10 view camera. If Japan can be said to have any surviving hidden treasures in this day of mass tourism, certainly these magnificent gardens hold that distinction. To visit them is certainly one of the chief pleasures of a stay in Japan’s …
From the spring of 1979, through the summer of 1991, I spent four months of each year, in different seasons, photographing the temples and gardens of Kyoto. My concern was not to merely document the rich, cultural heritage that these gardens represent, but to pursue the inner, hidden reality, the very essence of beauty that …
There are thousands of beautiful, famous gardens, temples, and shrines in Kyoto. William had visited many places, but whenever he was going to immortalize the places by capturing with his camera, he would always go back to the places where he felt he had the deep spiritual connection. William’s way of capturing the gardens had …
