Shooting to a word: yūgen, japan and the art of noticing

What happens when photography is shaped not by a brief, a checklist or a shot list, but by a single word? In October, I travelled to Japan with Fujifilm and a team of photographers as part of my journey to becoming as an Official FUJIFILM X-Photographer. We’d chatted about creative projects we could work on while there and I’d mentioned how beautiful some Japanese words are that have no direct translation but encapsulate so much feeling and connection. Each photographer was given a Japanese word to respond to visually. Almost like a muse to get to know and lead us to reflect on how we were both seeing and feeling the places we visited.

My word was yūgen.

Yūgen is often described as a profound, mysterious sense of beauty in the universe that triggers a deep emotional response. It is not something that can be easily defined or illustrated. It is something that is felt, often fleetingly, often in moments that are easily missed.

That tension between definition and intuition became the heart of this project, and the art of noticing.

Yūgen and the challenge of shooting beyond the literal

In a city dense with sound, movement and light, it is easy to assume that this profound mystery lives outside fo these limits. Neon signs, scale, speed, the eclectic energy of Tokyo. Everything felt so loud for a word that feels like it does not announce itself.

Instead, it reveals itself in the quiet moments. A child pressed to a window of a high rise mall, hands raised in wonder. A shared pause between strangers. A gesture mid-conversation. A fleeting exchange that reminds us of something deeper moving beneath the surface of everyday life.

Shooting to a word like yūgen was not about trying to capture Japan as a place. It was about the art of noticing and attuning to moments where the illusion of separation thins. Where we remember that we are not outside the universe looking in, but part of it. Made of the same elements that burn in the stars. The iron in our blood was forged in supernovae, and yet we spend our days rushing beneath lights that drown out the night sky, forgetting that connection.

Photography, in this context, becomes a practice of remembering.

Ordinary moments as portals of connection

Yūgen is everywhere, but rarely where we expect it. It lives in ordinary gestures that carry a universal language. The curiosity we feel when we want to know more about someone’s story. The way a shared meal or a glance across a counter can dissolve the illusion of disconnection.

One of the things that struck me most while photographing in Japan was how often these moments unfolded quietly at the edges. None of them posed, performative, but arrived in liminal moments that were deeply human.

These are the moments I am always drawn to, whether I am photographing people, place or the wider living world. They are the moments that reveal belonging. They remind us that connection is not something we have to manufacture. It is already there, waiting, through the art of noticing.

Working intuitively within creative constraints

Being asked to respond to a single word was actually quite confronting. In a way that we all need to meet us at those wild edges of our comfort zones. For me seeing it as such heart led word, layered with deep textures of feelings, meant that I had a whole other way of connecting with the city. It could have felt limiting. Instead, it was clarifying. As within it was an invitation to sense and feel the people and the place.

This is how I work most often. Led by light, by season, by place. Trusting intuition as a form of intelligence. Allowing images to emerge rather than forcing them into a preconceived shape. The word yūgen did not tell me what to photograph. It guided my attention, to attune to smaller details and moments and it became an anchor.

That approach mirrors my wider practice across earth, sea and sky. Whether I am working with purpose-led brands, conservation organisations or travelling through unfamiliar places, my work begins with attunement. The art of noticing in what stirs, what softens and what invites us to pause.

Japan, Fujifilm and a shared philosophy of seeing

Travelling with Fujifilm in Japan felt deeply aligned with this way of working. There is a shared passion for how the technology is there to empower us to capture moments. To embolden creativity and how stories are shared. This brings such freedom of expression of how we move through the world.

The behind-the-scenes film captures this process beautifully. Getting to hear how each photographer has been sensing their word in the context of place. Shared threads and unique moments of observation, conversation, waiting. Trusting that the image will come if we stay present long enough.

For me, this project was not about producing a definitive interpretation of yūgen. It’s allowing space for it to be felt, both in the making and in the viewing, in the art of noticing.

Photography as a practice of remembering

At its core, this work returns to the question of what photography is for.

For me, it is about revealing belonging. About offering images as gentle reminders that we are part of something vast, mysterious and alive. That beauty does not only exist in the dramatic or the remote, but in the everyday moments. These moments quietly connect us to each other and to the universe itself.

Yūgen asks us to slow down. It is the art of noticing. To feel rather than explain. And in doing so, it invites us back into relationship with the world we move through every day.

If you would like to explore more of my work shaped by intuition, light, connection and the art of noticing, you can watch the full behind-the-scenes film from Japan. Or, explore my photography and storytelling projects across earth, sea and sky here.

offical fujifilm x-photographer 2026 – present