Komorebi is a Japanese word that means sunlight filtering through the foliage. It’s much more than a technical description, it’s a feeling. It’s the emotions you experience from the shimmering light and dancing shadows created by the swaying of leaves in the wind. You often find komorebi under the canopy of a forest, especially in the early morning or late evening “golden hour” light.

My family and I watched a movie last night called Perfect Days. It was directed by Wim Wenders, and co-written by Wenders and Takuma Takasaki. I don’t want to spoil any of the film for those who haven’t seen it, so I will spare the details. It’s one of the best movies that I’ve seen in awhile, and well worth watching. A main and reoccurring theme of the movie is komorebi. If you decide to watch, stay until the end of the closing credits.

Wim Wenders, aside from being an accomplished movie director, is a talented photographer. His series (and book) Written in the West is a poetic depiction of southwestern Americana, and is a personal photographic influence. Generally speaking, I’m a bigger fan of his photographs than his movies; however, Perfect Days is a great movie. Below is an example of one of my images that has some similarities to Wenders’ Written in the West series.

As I watched Perfect Days, I found myself relating to Hirayama, the main character. He is drawn to that komorebi feeling of the light coming through the trees, and tries to photographically capture it. I oftentimes do that, although not usually with a lot of success. I don’t believe I realized that it’s a certain emotional response that I attempted to capture in those moments, or especially how difficult it is to communicate that feeling photographically. That’s the job of the photographer; however, it’s not an easy job, at least not for me. It’s one thing to capture the scene as I see it, but another to capture it as I feel it. Hopefully, the more I practice and the more I learn the better at it I will become. Photography is a life-long pursuit.

I spent a little time this morning going through my photographs captured over the last year, searching for examples of komorebi. There are certainly some, but not a lot that are actually any good. Now that I have a better understanding of what it is, I hope to do better moving forward.

Below are some of my komorebi photos. I hope that it somehow inspires you to create your own, or, at the very least, to watch Perfect Days sometime soon.