~Hokkaido: Act XV - Rooted in Quiet~

Photography opened my eyes to a quieter kind of beauty, one I had overlooked for most of my life. This image, made in the snowy fields of Hokkaido, isn’t grand or dramatic. In fact, it’s easy to walk right past. A stretch of pristine snow ripples gently across the frame, lit by the low winter sun. A small piece of dried field straw, or perhaps something that once stood tall in a summer crop, pokes through the snow. It almost resembles a miniature tree, with tiny offshoots like branches and the faintest suggestion of leaves, casting a delicate shadow across the untouched surface. That’s it. And somehow, that’s everything, nothing more is needed.

This kind of scene used to escape me. Early in my photography journey, I chased the obvious, the big landscapes, the postcard views. There’s nothing wrong with those, but they never fully satisfied me. I’d come home with full memory cards and still feel like I had missed something.

Over the years, and with a lot of trial and error, I began to slow down. I learned how to truly see, not just what was in front of me, but how it made me feel. That shift in perception, in both sight and emotion, has shaped everything about how I create. To look differently. Black and white helped with that, it removed the distraction of color and revealed the structure, the contrast, the emotion. It taught me to see not just what’s there, but how it feels. It’s not always easy to explain, but it’s a shift that changed my work, and how I move through the world.

I was talking to someone at a recent event about that shift. He brought up my style, and we talked about how I found photography later in life. It’s only been about eight or nine years, but it’s hard to remember how I saw things before. I used to look at a field like this and see… well, just a pretty stretch of untouched snow. Now, I see quiet beauty. I see the little “tree” as a strong presence—a kind of force, holding its own in the emptiness. Now I see a story, a question, a composition waiting in the light.

I really appreciate this kind of photograph, the kind that whispers. These minimal scenes aren’t obvious or bold; they don’t tell a story outright. Instead, they leave room for the viewer’s eye and mind to wander. They invite questions, spark imagination, and offer the freedom to create a story of one’s own, and I love when an image can do that. There’s no drama, no landmark, no visual fireworks. Just a quiet moment and the delicate, beautiful way light carves through snow. There’s just enough depth in the ripples to create contrast, without it, the scene might look like a blank sheet of white. But here, the light and shadow reveal subtle patterns, and we know how much I love patterns. A single remnant of growth, defying the emptiness, adding a touch of life to an otherwise quiet expanse. A tiny shadow. And all the space in between.

I hope you enjoy this image as much as I did creating it,

Andrew

View the rest of the Hokkaido: A Tale of Light and Snow here.