It has already been more than a year since I began Encounters, the second chapter of the Connections Trilogy.
Last October, I decided it was time to begin the second chapter. The final shoot took place in the last week of September this year, which means I spent roughly a year moving between photographing the work and exhibiting it.
It took about eight months to establish the basic structure of the project. The pace was faster than with the first chapter, Relationships. Toward the later stages, however, I found myself spending more time thinking about how to construct the sequence than about the individual images themselves.
The first chapter had been difficult to photograph because of the many restrictions I had imposed on myself. But its structure—four seasons and twelve months—had been clear from the beginning. Once I succeeded in making the photograph I had in mind, its place within the sequence was more or less naturally determined. In fact, the process became easier in the later stages once I began making the dummy book.
With the second chapter, I did not want to repeat those difficulties. From the beginning, I left much more room for uncertainty and kept the direction open as the work developed. But because I had not photographed with a specific sequence in mind, a different set of problems began to emerge when I started making the dummy book.
In the end, I worked through those problems by repeatedly submitting the project to open calls and presenting it in exhibitions. I put the work out into the world, listened to responses, and revised the sequence and selection. Through that process, I gradually accumulated experience, and it eventually led to several of the results I had hoped for this year.
October was the month when many of those results became especially visible.
In Seoul, I gave a guest lecture to the 17th SLAP cohort. In London, PhotoMonth 2026 opened, followed by Trieste Photo Days 2026 in Italy.
Seoul, London, and Trieste. My work was being presented in three different cities at almost the same time.
In the final week of September, I also made the last photographs for Encounters.
I had actually been thinking about bringing the project to a close since August. But the scene I was waiting for did not appear. I continued making images that were aesthetically interesting but did not quite belong within the subject of the second chapter. It was only after the heat of summer had passed and autumn arrived that I encountered a moment that felt like an ending.
It was not exactly the scene I had imagined. Yet while photographing it, I had the feeling that this would be the final shoot for the second chapter.
I decided not to travel to London or Trieste. I also chose not to apply for the Fujifilm Paris open call, even though it had been something I had wanted to pursue since earlier in the year.
There was no grand reason behind those decisions.
I felt that taking on all of those schedules would begin to affect my preparation for the third chapter. After a long period of consideration, I decided that this time it was enough for the work to be selected and exhibited, and that I would watch from a distance.
Even as I write this, I do not feel physically or psychologically ready to travel to Europe and manage those schedules in person.
I sometimes wonder whether I could have spoken about my work in Europe with the same depth that I was able to in Seoul.
I struggled with my condition several times this year. After returning from Kyoto, I never fully recovered before continuing to photograph, prepare exhibitions, and apply to open calls.
My belief that exhibitions are part of the working process has not changed. But exhibitions consume a significant amount of energy, whether they are domestic or international, and whether I attend them in person or not.
Looking back, I think the past two months have been a period of mild burnout. In the end, I did not go to Europe because I was not ready.
Perhaps my work began receiving responses and encountering opportunities sooner than I had expected, and started finding its own place before I was fully prepared to follow it.
Is this now the point when I need to follow my own work?
If the work itself has been able to communicate something meaningful to an audience, I am grateful for that alone. But I still believe that, in order for what comes next—and what goes beyond that—to happen, there are many things that are only possible if I am physically there.
I still do not know whether the presence of the artist beside the work necessarily helps someone experience it. I also think there is value in encountering the work entirely on its own, without knowing me at all.
But explaining the work, meeting people, listening to questions, and creating unexpected opportunities are things the work cannot do entirely by itself.
For now, I think I still need to go with it.
If similar opportunities arise next year, I want to be there in person whenever circumstances allow. And I want to prepare myself so that, once I am there, I can properly do what only I can do.
My work has already arrived in places before me.
Now I want to follow it there.