Journal
The season
Crickets sing by the door
A cricket at Munich’s Tierpark Hellabrunn — a close encounter with the creature at the heart of an ancient autumn observation.
The search begins
A different sense of time
A sunlit path, a long lens, and tortoises on the way to a much smaller subject.
The season
Chrysanthemums open
An autumn visit to Munich’s Botanical Garden, where red chrysanthemums and closed buds reveal what is still beginning.
Colour in the garden
What is still beginning
A parrot sculpture, a Sigma in the hand, and a pink-and-white flower — on the way to the red chrysanthemum.
The season
Wild geese return
An afternoon beside Lake Zurich, a sky worth waiting for, and a seasonal response to the return of wild geese.
Waiting by the water
An afternoon to celebrate
Passenger boats, a jetty, gold and white balloons — and a sky worth waiting under, Lake Zurich.
The season
Water leaves the fields
Wet furrows, reflected sky, and the shape of the earth beneath the water.
The way in
Low mist over the fields
Seen from the car: a broad field, a thin band of mist, and the same light returning in the wing mirror.
The season
Insects retreat below ground
A search for insects became a study of where life disappears. A beetle in dead wood, Forstenrieder Park.
The way in
The search narrows
Late-summer light on the road into Forstenrieder Park. Then the search moved from landscape to habitat.
The season
Thunder falls silent
The thunder had passed. The silence stayed behind. Hintersteiner See, after the weather withdrew.
The roadtrip
The plan, then the pivot
Starnberger See was too finished. The journey continued south. Hintersteiner See became the answer.
The season
The swallows depart
A search for swallows became a meditation on distance. Falcons on the Raisting antennas.
The search
Signals in the landscape
Cattle in the meadow, the Alps on the horizon and antennas listening across continents.
The season
Wagtails call
Ninety minutes of waiting for a fraction of a second. A wagtail at the Flaucher, Munich.
In the field
Waiting at the Flaucher
Before the photograph came the scouting. Then the waiting. Camera ready, at the edge of the Isar.
The season
White dew rests on grass
This morning the change was already there. Dew on leaf and silk. Season 43 did not announce itself. It revealed itself.
Field note
The clearing
The woods behind the frame. Beech light, leaf-litter, a morning that had not yet warmed the ground. Then the sun reached the silk.
The season
The grain ripens
First real frame of the year. Dry grasses at the edge of a field near Starnberg. The original kō speaks of rice. The photograph answers with seed heads turning gold.
Making of
In the field
How the first frame was made. Low to the grass, the year turning at the roadside near Starnberg.
Poetic & observational
A slower way of seeing seasonal change.
Photographed by Michael Gebert
72 personal photographic responses — not a documentary of Japan.
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Supporting the journey before all 72 seasons are complete.
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