A trip through southern Japan and the islands of Kyushu and Okinawa are a reflection upon a culture that is highly technological but still deeply spiritual. In Japanese culture there are many popular ghost stories and tales of mountain spirits. Japan is an interesting country, modern and industrial in every way but temples and shrines form the centre of every community. Get out of the city and there are graveyards on every hillside or in the corner of seemingly every field, most are actively tended to as tradition dictates. Each rock or tree has it’s own shinto shrine and every house a place to give offerings to the ancestors.The Japanese do not let their dead go easily and the dead in their turn seem to wander.

As a photographer I try to condense a moment out of the continuum of experience. These moments are a meditation upon a time and a place. They try to embody the spirit of that place and my impressions of it in the time leading up to and in the actions of taking the shot. That moment if it is to be of interest must contain so much more than any single moment can, it must allude to the universal. These moments are isolated experiences within a larger context, moments of contemplation, reflection and holding space. The images serve to capture a thought and a memory, to distil it out of time and to fix it.