Y U K I M I (Snow Viewing)

Small Selection

A winter journey in the North of Japan and Hokkaido. 2023

Haguro San

The hoarse cawing of a crow and the soft trickle of snowfall breaks the silence. For a brief moment, a cool wind rustles through the branches of the old cedar trees and makes them creak. Then silence again. Only silence.

The white of the snow makes everything incidental disappear and transforms the landscape into a fairyland. Even ugliness seems bearable through this reduction. Minimalism of nature. It seems as if the essence of things is revealed. Trees completely naked, show their true character without their leaves.

The condensation of my breath forms little icicles in my beard and the crunch of my shoes in the deep and frozen snow reminds

me of my childhood, when the world was still in order.

Perhaps this whiteness of the snow, the freshness of the clear air and the muted silence, has settled somewhere in my brain as a landscape of memories and is gently awakened by this presence.

Memories... Many years before I have climbed the 2446 steps of this pilgrimage, lived a week in the monastery on top of the mountain, meditated in the forest and experienced the most wondrous things.

But that’s another story, which resonates and creates a melancholic mood. The time that does not exist, melts like the snow in my hands. There is nothing to hold on to. Everything dissolves into nothing and ends in this wonderful white. Is it color, is it light? I, too, dissolve into it in a serene, even innocent way today.

Zao Onsen

A gondola takes me up to the 1600m high mountain. The temperature feels like 25 degrees below zero. Icy winds from Siberia meet the powdery snow that lies meters high on the trees and turns them into ice monsters. But there is nothing to see at the moment, because a whiteout reduces the visibility to a few meters.

But once again, this weather phenomenon deeply corresponds to my ascetic side and my soul relaxes and if it could breathe, this would probably be the time to take a deep breath.

When is one physically in a cloud? Walking feels like floating, a soft and flexible gait with no discernible contours. Hearing probes all the sparse signals, but it remains vague and intuition is challenged. A strange feeling comes over one. With open eyes, there is nothing to see except white. One seems to be blind, but is not a prisoner of darkness, but of light.

After a small eternity, the foggy wall cracks and reveals the enchanted tree creatures. It feels like a movie set of “Lord of the Rings”. Once again nature shows itself as an unsurpassable artist.

Hokkaido

This is love at first sight. Wild and far. Long drives on deep snowy back roads without traffic. A thousand facets of white. White, white and white. A white that creates an elegant world without disturbing background noise. Colorless and yet uniting all colors. A way to see the world in a new way. Not the colorful, but the bright and the light one. This white takes possession of you and leaves a deep feeling of peace and clarity. But also-, a feeling of daydreaming, hallucinations and disorientation. But then, when you think you are already lost, suddenly a naked tree appears on the horizon and you immediately feel warmly greeted by a friend and led back into the realm of scale.

I am standing on the shore of a large lake. The surface is already covered with a thin layer of ice. In a month the whole surface will be deeply frozen. Now it is still fragile and vulnerable. This becomes apparent a short time later. The sun is shining. A breeze blows from the mountains. The ice begins to break apart. The wind drives the thin ice floes to the shore where they pile up on top of each other. The sound produced is like an electronic synthesizer. I have never heard such an overwhelming sound in nature.

These moments are priceless. You can’t force them. They just happen when you happen to be at the right time, in the right place. They leave a deep sense of satisfaction and are the reason why I travel and love being out in nature.

After half an hour, clouds cover the sun and the whole phantasmagory is over.

Into the great, wide open

Conversations with landscapes

While my mind likes to structure, analyze and organize everything, my soul needs open spaces to breath, enfold and fly.

In the vastness of some landscapes we become very small, insignifant and vulnerable. It sets us into the right proportian. We become aware of what we are in time and space. Our inner universe desolves into the outer universe. The infinite emptiness between the physical manifestations creates a headspace beyond polarities. Peace and a feeling of freedom invades us. Nothing to fear, just transformation. Finally the thoughts come naturally to an end. There is nothing to believe, nothing to understand, nothing that you can have, just mystery. You become what you are. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything is as it is. Moments turn into eternity. The overwhelming diversity is balanced and not a threat anymore. Everything gets lighter. The burden falls off our shoulders.

How could we not see it? It was always there.

All I have to do is to remember, go out there and be quiet for a moment. No phone, no holding on of taking pictures, no activities. Just beeing.

I n v a s i o n

“And darkness was around me.”

R e n a i s s a n c e

S E L E C T I O N

My first encounter with the Renaissance was in my childhood. I remember creaking wooden floors, stern glances from museum guards, the stuffy smell of old velvet curtains and the gloomy daylight that penetrated through the sparse windows of the halls and made the Renaissance paintings disappear more than they appeared in a pale light. Despite this unfavorable staging, the paintings fascinated me immediately and cast a spell over me. With the portraits, for example, it was these strange looks that seemed to follow you from wherever you were. Eerie and exciting at the same time. Only much later through photography, I started to understand the underlying phenomenas of these circumstances.

The list of fascination is long. To name but a few: The use of perspective with a foreground (usually a portrait), an architectural "middle ground" and an idealized landscape as background, the hidden messages in mirrors and reflecting glass, the mannerism of postures (e.g. the way the little finger is spread away from the hand), the drapery of noble garments, the ludicrous still lifes with vegetables and meat, the compositions in golden section and Fibonacci sequence, the wit and cheekiness of including a fly in the picture, the magnificent and dramatic light shows (Caravaggio), the symbolism and metaphors, the suffering, the religious, the decadence and the orgiastically lustful.

Renaissance also reflects the opposite of my “Zen” inspiration. It’s the love for orgiastic colours, absurdities and story telling. The pictures try to express that mood and with their stories some surrealistic components and ironic comments are added to it.

A R B O R E T U M

S E L E C T I O N

For a long time I take “portraits” of trees. They seem like friends to me. I often talk to them, or even hug them sometimes. Yes–, I know, but It comes naturally. For these photos, I developed and discovered a special technic. I wait for wind, put my camera on a tripod and photograph the tree with a very long exposure time, so everything would be blurred and in motion. The second shot would have a very short exposure time to have everything sharp. By composing these two picture together, I have a photograph with the movement in it, but also with sharp leaves to see. It works well with large prints and is more difficult with Web-pictures.

E C H O S F R O M B E Y O N D !

S E L E C T I O N

T H E   S O U N D   O F   S I L E N C E

I walk on my path through the valleys. Morning mist on my skin. I hear the river whispering my name. Big brother mountain shows me my true size and the trees are singing their mantras with the wind. Light breaks through the clouds and the window opens to infinity. The barking of a dog in the distance and the smell of an autumn fire are flooding my brain and bliss is overwhelming my soul. This is my temple and my church

Everything is a sign and speaks to me. Nothing is a sign and doesn‘t tell me anything. But--, everything is connected. I‘m connected. This being connected is beyond words. It can only be experienced. It creates a sound and a flow. If your in, you «know».

The Leylines of my work try to «talk» about that. But-, what you can look at, is not what you can see. It is between the lines. It‘s like a Haiku, maybe. 

So-, close your eyes and listen! Feel it!

I know this is a paradox. Paradoxes are my true home, because they dissolve the polaraties and place the mind into checkmate.

T H E   B E A U T Y   O F   E M P T I N E S S

Breathing. I am breathing. Deeply. Strong inhales and long exhales. The world is changing. My senses are awakening. My body expands. My brain and every cell of my body gets flooded with oxygen. Everything is there, right in front of my nose. I come to this world with a breath and it will be the last thing I do before I leave.

My breath connects me with the subconscious and my true self. My true self is not what I think who and what I am. It is the total connection with everything. That can not be understood by the mind, but still is known at the moment it happens. The moment of here and now is the only time, life exists. There is nothing to hold to. The great diversity in it‘s constant change creates a situation for me. Either I try to establish a system that helps me to structure «the chaos» and gives me a sense of safety which is based on an illusion, or I totaly surrender to it and to the flow of life. 

Sokrates: «All I know is, that I don‘t know.»

To be in the flow of life and surrender to the infinite unknown, needs great courage and trust in a «bigger picture». 

Your systems, conditionings and logic will eventually collapse. There is no certainty, security, predictability or recipes. But once there, you see the miracles of life. The turning wheel of the polarities is beyond judgements and morals. It just happens and everything is exactly there, where it should be. Why? Because it is as it is and needs no interpretations from a limited mind. The world is perfect. You are perfect.

Jump into a river, climb a tree, watch the stars and breath. 

Inspirare (latin for breathe in), inspire, in spirit. Again, it‘s all there and for free!  

Even though I still make pictures, my cup is empty and ready to be filled by you. Nothing is more exciting, than to follow your own leylines. Be brave. It is your life!