The images in Flower Gaiden seek to explore personal resilience and interiority by pointing at small glimpses of beauty in a highly urbanized environment. Flower Gaiden has a particular focus on small moments that could only be found in Japan - specifically the titular flowers growing in the situations in which I found them. Each photo forms a different meditation both on this environment which I had not seen before, and on what feeling or understanding I found within myself. My feeling is that while my meditations are idiosyncratic to myself, others may find the beauty in these flora, these spaces, and these buildings, and be inspired to find their own small meditative moments. The impetus for Flower Gaiden was a reworking of my method of seeing - while being exposed to a novel-to-me environment; as I am, at best, a provincial American. The title “Flower Gaiden” both addresses my primary subject (Flowers), and also the circumstances underwhich the work was made - a gaiden is a side story, a supplement to a longer or more major body of work, though, the insights in these side stories can be just as informative as the longer epics that they find themselves placed between. In this case the side story went on to inform my broader thinking on beauty and translating it to photography for others to see.