Printed on black paper, the photographs in Yasuhiro Ogawa’s “Lost in Kyoto” convey a sense of fleeting existence, as if they might fade back into darkness once the page is closed, despite the intensity of their colors. Ogawa, who according to his afterword only fell under Kyoto’s mysterious spell in 2014, photographed the city in search of something transcendental – the invisible layers of history that quietly shape and define it. Focusing on motifs that feel eternal rather than timeless, Ogawa evokes an image of Japan’s ancient capital emerging from the shadows, one that few will ever truly see.

“After walking for about thirty minutes, sweat beading on my forehead, I finally reached a small temple, surrounded by cedar trees. It was the inner sanctuary of Kurama Temple.
I didn’t see anyone on the way from the main hall to the inner sanctuary, and there was no sign of anyone inside. But that was a good thing for me. I hadn’t been alone in the silence of a temple deep in the mountains since I traveled to Tibet a long time ago. I wanted to enjoy the silence. I lightly placed my hands, sat down to take a breath at the entrance, and looked up at the clear blue autumn sky beyond the old cedar trees …
It is this kind of history of Kyoto that I have been trying to visualize over the past decade. Not history as a superficial record, but history as a "living creature" that has been nurtured and cultivated throughout people's lives. Yes, Kyoto's history deserves to be called a "living creature." It has a pulse; it breathes.”
― from Yasuhiro Ogawa’s afterword