When I was a high school student, this lesson from the Japanese classics was boring for me. I wasn’t interested in the term “a-wa-re” or the traditional aesthetic ideal. I thought that since we were living in modern society, we would never share those very Japanese feelings detailed in classical literature. It was a long time until I noticed that my creative work was based on a concept which should be called “a-wa-re,” particularly in the case of photographing a woman in the nude. I wondered, ” What should I do to represent what I feel through photography?” I wanted to express a deep emotion I experienced in my heart, but I didn’t know what the feeling was at that time. However, after I photographed a friend of mine, I rediscovered the concept. The traditional meaning of the term seemed to fit the feeling common to both of us. It had a hint of sadness, and at the same time, what could even be called joy. It seemed to me that the feeling suggested an affinity between beauty and sadness. Then I remembered the classical stories and traditional poetry from ancient times.