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Yūgen (幽玄)
2024 -
The word itself combines yū (幽: "dim, secret, tranquil") and gen (玄: "mysterious, profound")
A mysterious sense of beauty that is subtly suggested rather than explicitly shown.
For me it's a feeling of awe or wonder inspired by the deeper, hidden aspects of something, often involving an awareness of the universe and its mysteries.
Essentially, it's about the beauty that lies beyond what is immediately visible or understandable.
It is said that Yūgen is found in
“seeing the moon through the branches of a tree.”
The branches matter as much as the moon—perhaps more.
For in the obstruction, the mind is stirred.
In that partial view, imagination is allowed to breathe.
There are days when the world feels less like a place, and more like a memory.
These images were taken during such days—
when time seemed to slow down,
and what I saw felt like a scene remembered from a forgotten dream.
What drew me in wasn’t the scene itself,
but the feeling beneath it.
I often think of a certain someone when making photographs like these.
Someone who once told me that the invisible can be more truthful than what we can see.
Yūgen reminds me of that.
It reminds me to leave space in the frame—for absence and for memory,
for that which stays behind when everything else has passed.
If something lingers here,
I hope it finds you gently.
A mysterious sense of beauty that is subtly suggested rather than explicitly shown.
For me it's a feeling of awe or wonder inspired by the deeper, hidden aspects of something, often involving an awareness of the universe and its mysteries.
Essentially, it's about the beauty that lies beyond what is immediately visible or understandable.
It is said that Yūgen is found in
“seeing the moon through the branches of a tree.”
The branches matter as much as the moon—perhaps more.
For in the obstruction, the mind is stirred.
In that partial view, imagination is allowed to breathe.
There are days when the world feels less like a place, and more like a memory.
These images were taken during such days—
when time seemed to slow down,
and what I saw felt like a scene remembered from a forgotten dream.
What drew me in wasn’t the scene itself,
but the feeling beneath it.
I often think of a certain someone when making photographs like these.
Someone who once told me that the invisible can be more truthful than what we can see.
Yūgen reminds me of that.
It reminds me to leave space in the frame—for absence and for memory,
for that which stays behind when everything else has passed.
If something lingers here,
I hope it finds you gently.
An autumn night –
don’t think your life
didn’t matter.
don’t think your life
didn’t matter.
- Bashō