It was an early spring Sunday. It was that time when the weather was neither hot nor cold, neither sunny nor cloudy. A Sunday when time rushes toward the new Monday. Like many times when I had no plan for the day, a little bike ride was exactly what I needed to tame the turmoil of time. So, I jumped on the bike and headed to previously unexplored area of Kyoto. I had no clue about what I was about to find, I was just driven by curiosity.

My stop was, of course, a shrine. Its courtyard was quite ample, with a small specific garden of rocks and sand and several classic Shinto buildings. It wasn’t very crowded. In fact, I was surprised to see only a few families of locals and almost no foreign tourists.

The buildings were connected by beautifully crafted wooden corridors. Between the wooden pillars sustaining the roof, parts of the garden would often pop into view, and their mix of fresh colors created a harmonious combination with the timber of buildings. Sometimes, you could catch a shy glimpse into the rooms near those corridors, a transient invasion of their privacy and eternal balance. But everything was built in such a way that you could only see parts of the rooms and from every angle you were gifted with a different and surprising view.

The general feeling was of everlasting amazement, respect, peace, admiration and a hint of mystery. In a certain area of ​​the corridor I thought I could hear an extremely faint, monotonous but very persistent sound. It was complemented  by the specific fragrance of incense. Absorbed by the colourful garden-green-brown-timber display and because the sound was so subtle, more of a feeling than a certainty, I passed through that area like in a dream.

I continued my trip completing the tour of all buildings to reach the entrance again. While I took a short break, I tried to review the entire experience, under the spell,  peace and mystery. I could not help but notice the memory blur about that curious sound-fragrance tandem. “Was it all real?” I wondered…. “And if so, where did it come from?” I still failed to understand so, I went down the corridors once more.

This time it was much brighter outside so the sunlight amplified the fairytale air of the place.

When I reached the magic area, the sound was there, as a pillar of the universe. This time, I kept my focus only on it, craving to find its source. I thought initially that the sound resembled an insect whirring, but it was not a cicada because it was too subtle. I imagined that the ocean of green was hiding some unknown insects singing that unworldly incantation …. “But what was it?” And so, looking for insects I reached to a corner of the corridor where among the

Shinto priest praying – Shimogamo-Jinja, Kyoto, Japan

wooden pillars seemingly afire by the sunlight, I found the source of the noise. It was the priest from the picture, standing there motionless and humming the alien tune. His clothes were brown like the wooden buildings, part of the camouflage inspired by the world of insects who wrote the octaves, quavers and harmonics of the prayer-meditation tune.

The interior basking in the sunlight amplified even more the mystery of the priest.

So I put my camera into action, which at the time was like a matchbox, and I have captured the best I could all that atmosphere. Technically, the quality of the picture was quite under par. The light, in essence, was quite difficult to photograph.  The overall conditions of photography were quite improper:  the space was small and twisted and the atmosphere created by the monk forced you to move as little as possible in order not to disturb.

That’s why I kept it for myself and my memories for a long time. But then, remembering the whole story, I decided to share it. The surprise was huge when I realised that the picture, as technically improper as it was, was still telling a great story!

It became one of the most praised pictures of that period. And so, once again, I became convinced that technique is just one of the contributing elements to the reality of a story image. And it is more of a secondary element, the main thing being the ability of the photographer to perceive the story. This is an extra-technical aspect, extremely complex.

At that time, I came up with a personal definition of photography::

“The photo is captured by the photographer’s eyes, mind and soul using a tool …. the camera”.