This post on Mono No Aware in traditional Japanese Zen aesthetics picks up on this previous  post about wabi sabi and my  large format photography.   This bushland photography in  Waitpinga bushland on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia was a little project during 2002 that was done on  the early morning poodlewalks with Kayla. 

That earlier post  highlighted how Wabi and sabi emphasise contentment and the acceptance of imperfection as a result of the ravages of time. Mono No Aware,  in contrast,  refers  to awareness and acceptance of the ephemeral of life. The “pathos” (aware) of “things” (mono), derives from their transience. The underlying idea is transience and impermanence in life. It is an acceptance of  perishability as opposed to the traditional preference for permanence. 

The most frequently cited example of mono no aware in contemporary Japan is the traditional love of cherry blossoms of the Japanese cherry trees. These  are intrinsically no more beautiful than those of, say, the pear or the apple tree: they are more highly valued because of their transience, since they usually begin to fall within a week of their first appearing.

The fleeting moment in the bushland was the  early morning light:

The light was ephemeral: it  lasted on this branch of the pink gum for a minute or so before disappearing.  I knew the time it happened in the early morning during the early winter months and I would have the 5x4 Linhof Technika IV set  up on its tripod waiting.  Often I would have the camera set up but the clouds would drift at the crucial moment and there was no light on the branch. 

This highlights a sensitivity to the ephemerality of thing -- an appreciation of those fleeting moments that is tinged with sorrow at this transiency light that is so crucial to photographing nature. It takes a lot of planning and effort to get to the location  and set up, then one,  long exposure  or maybe second  exposure as the light moves,  and  then  it's all over. 

However, this  melancholy is suffused with a quiet rejoicing in the fact that we had the chance to witness the beauty of then early morning, however fleetingly.  This appreciation requires a close view of the  surrounding context since the appreciation lies not in the object per se, but in the whole experience  and fleeting time span of time  in which the light is present of the branch and changing.

In many ways large format still photography fails to represent Mono No Aware since it cannot be represented by a single moment --as in the above photos-- but needs to be followed through during a span of time. That means a shift to video or cinema.  So the melancholy is deepened by the limitations of large format photography.  

I have no idea if traditional Zen aesthetics  informs contemporary Japanese photography , or more specifically  large format photography, as I know very little about contemporary Japanese photography or its aesthetics.