#49 · Oct 8–12 · Cold Dew
Wild geese return
鴻雁来
Kōgan kitaru · Wild geese return
Above Lake Zurich, a loose line of geese gives the evening sky a direction, while the city settles along the water below.
The season
鴻雁来 · Kōgan kitaru
Wild geese return.
The forty-ninth kō opens Kanro — Cold Dew. In the traditional Japanese calendar, the return of wild geese is a sign of autumn deepening. The season is recognised in a movement across the sky.
The phrase asks us to look up. A stretch of air that seemed empty becomes a route; separate birds briefly become a shared shape. Their passage gives the landscape another scale, reaching beyond the shore in front of us.
At Lake Zurich, the old observation finds a different setting. Boats cross the water, people gather along the promenade, and the city remains part of the view. The response to this kō begins there, with the attention given to the sky above an ordinary afternoon.
October 8–12 · Kanro · Cold Dew
Field note · Lake Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland · Autumn 2026
The lake was busy that afternoon.
Passenger boats came and went. People gathered along the waterfront, and a party made its way down the jetty carrying gold and white balloons. There were birthdays to celebrate, excursions to take, and a mild autumn afternoon worth staying outside for.
I had come with the Sigma BF and a reason to linger. Season 49 had given me something particular to look for: wild geese returning. I readied the camera, settled on a view across the water and began watching the sky.
Waiting beside a city lake has its own rhythm. A boat enters the frame and passes through it. People board, others arrive, and the water carries the disturbance for a while. Between those movements, my attention kept returning to the open space above the opposite shore.
There were birds around. What held my interest was the possibility of a group crossing together — a brief formation that might give direction to all that space.
As the afternoon eased towards evening, the waiting became part of the experience. The camera gave me a reason to stay in one place long enough to notice the life around it: the traffic on the lake, the small procession on the jetty, the distance between one shore and the other.
Those observations became the starting point for the final composition. The field trip holds the afternoon as I experienced it; the season image brings the lake and the returning geese into a single visual response.
Waiting by the water
An open stretch of sky above Lake Zurich. The camera was ready; the waiting had begun.
The lake’s rhythm
Passenger boats came and went, giving the afternoon its own rhythm.
An afternoon to celebrate
Celebrations on the jetty, balloons above the water, and an afternoon worth lingering over.
The photograph
The sky holds most of the frame.
Along the lower edge, the lake and the Zurich waterfront give the image a place to rest. Buildings, trees and the bridge remain recognisable, but their scale is small beneath the open air.
The geese cross that space in a loose, uneven line. Wings rise and fall at different angles. The gaps between the birds keep the group from becoming a single solid shape; the eye follows one body, then moves to the next.
Below them, a narrow warmth remains near the horizon. It passes into the water as a muted reflection, while blue-grey clouds occupy the larger part of the sky. The autumn colour is held in that balance of warmth and cooling light.
The final image brings the Zurich setting and a separate reference of geese in flight together as a composition. Its subject is the seasonal idea of return: a shared movement crossing a familiar landscape.
The city stays in view. So does the water. Between them and the open sky, the birds give the scene a passing direction.
Image note: The photographs made in Zurich and Field-trip images have been digitally reworked.
Revisited
The word “return” depends on where you are standing.
A bird arriving in one landscape has left another behind. The old kō names the moment from a particular place, where the sight of geese belongs to the unfolding of autumn. Reading it from Zurich brings that perspective into focus.
I can watch the sky above this lake without knowing where every bird has come from or where it will go next. What the seasonal phrase changes is my attention. It gives a passing movement enough importance to stop for.
Around me, the afternoon had plenty of other destinations. A boat was leaving. A group was boarding. Someone was carrying balloons to a celebration. The waterfront was full of people going somewhere, while I had chosen a place to wait.
Staying there made those ordinary movements more visible. Each boat briefly changed the surface of the water. Each group on the jetty rearranged the foreground. The distant shore remained, and above it the sky offered room for something else to happen.
That experience belongs to the image as much as the idea of geese returning. The final composition gives the seasonal theme a visible form; the field note preserves the slower, less certain work of looking for it.
For 72 Seasons Revisited, an old observation can open a new question in a familiar place. Here, it was a question about arrival, departure and the patience needed to notice either.
I came to the lake looking for birds. I left with a closer sense of the afternoon around them.
The lake carries the light.
The sky carries the birds.
Autumn passes overhead.
49 / 72
Eight photographs made.
Sixty-four observations still ahead.
72 seasons. 72 photographs. One year. One edition.
Notice where you are
What makes you look up?
A call above the rooftops.
A few birds moving in the same direction.
A gap opening and closing within a flock.
The last warmth beneath a bank of cloud.
A familiar stretch of water beneath an unfamiliar sky.
Stay for a moment.
A season may pass overhead before you have found a name for it.