Flower Sakiko Nomura

A photo book by Japanese photographer Sakiko Nomura.

After approaching photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, who was famous for not taking on apprentices, and directly approaching him in 1991, Nomura became his apprentice. Over the next nearly a quarter of a century, she continued to study under him, photographing kabuki actors and film stills, and even working on her own projects on her days off. Photography has always been at the center of her life.

This is a series of flowers that was born after the artist's grandfather died in a traffic accident that occurred in front of his house, and he began photographing the flowers that were offered in his grandfather's honor at the scene.

The flowers, floating in the darkness of the night, bloom with an arrogant beauty, but the photographs of wilted and decaying flowers are also interwoven, quietly but eloquently demonstrating that flowers do not reach their peak of beauty only when in full bloom.