EN / JP
TSUTSU / URAURA
TSUTSU / URAURA is a long-term photographic project documenting towns across Japan, the lives lived within them, and landscapes shaped by time.
I am especially drawn to fishing ports, harbor towns, and places where everyday life remains closely connected to the water.
Rather than focusing only on well-known destinations, I walk through places where people live and work, photographing the traces of everyday life and the passage of time as I encounter them.
I am not interested only in preserving what is old.
The new and the old.
Bustle and stillness.
What people have made and what nature has created.
And light and time.
I want to photograph the relationships between the different elements that shape a place as it exists today.
The Name
In Japanese, Tsu (津) means a port or harbor, while Ura (浦) refers to a shore, inlet, or waterside place.
The expression Tsutsu Uraura (津々浦々) originally evokes ports and shores in every direction, and today is used to mean “throughout Japan” or “everywhere across the country.”
I chose the name for a project built around walking through and documenting places across Japan.
Walking and Photographing
With a 35mm lens as my basic point of view, I value spending time in one town—walking, stopping, and noticing something for myself—rather than trying to cover as many places as possible.
I may return to the same place in another season, or walk through it again years or even decades later.
Places change.
People change.
The photographer changes as well.
This project is a way of building a photographic record of that passage of time.
