Garry Winogrand said something I can definitely relate to in my attempts at learning to photograph.  

He said, "Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the picture as judgment that the photograph is good."  

So many times I've felt something was beautiful, the light was perfect, and so on, only to find the resulting shot fell far short of what I thought I'd seen.  I've always felt this gap was a measure of my shortcomings as a photographer, and closing it would mean getting the actual photograph closer to how I imagined it should look when I took it.  So it's a bit heartening to find that someone as accomplished as Winogrand was at least aware of this tendency.

By the way, Winogrand also famously said he photographs to see what a thing looks like photographed.  This underscores how the photograph is something distinct from its subject.  I've found it can be good to just photograph things I feel like shooting in the moment, even when I don't know why.  Just do it without thinking too much.  I can go back to those photos later and look for patterns, perhaps finding out what it was that interested me even if I didn't realize it at the time of shooting.  And maybe even go back to that same place or thing later.  There is no need to think too much.  In fact, thoughts can become impediments in the moment.

I recently came across the opening lines from, “The Tale of the Heike”, an epic poem of unclear authorship which is one of the cornerstones of classical Japanese literature.  I’d copied them into my notebook as follows (from what source I can’t be sure, but it may have been a book on Zen).

“The bell of the Gion Temple tolls into every man’s house to warn him that all is vanity and evanescence.  The faded flowers of the sala trees by the Buddha’s deathbed bear witness to the truth that all who flourish are destined to decay.”

Looking into this further, I became sidetracked by the astonishing variety of the few different translations I found.  Here is Helen Craig McCullough:

“The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.  The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.”

And here is Royall Tyler:

“ The Jetavana Temple bells

ring the passage of all things.

Twinned sal trees, white in full flower,

declare the great man’s certain fall.

The arrogant do not long endure.

They are like a dream one night in spring.

The bold and brave perish in the end:

They are as dust before the wind.”

And then Patrick O’Neill:

“The knell of the bells at the Gion temple

Echoes the impermanence of all things.

The colour of the flowers on its double-trunked tree

Reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall.

He who is proud is not so for long,

Like a passing dream on a night in spring.

He who is brave is finally destroyed,

To be no more than dust before the wind.”

This highlights the difficulties in translating Japanese to English, and they’re evidently magnified in the case of classical Japanese (on which I make no claim to any authority whatsoever; I know just enough to spot dodgy translations in subtitles of popular films). 

In any case, whichever translation one chooses, this sense of transience seems to me one key entry point into art and culture here. 

Kyoto Journal #84 features photos by, and an interview with, Naoyuki Ogino.  His photos are delicate and subtle, including shots of Kyoto and elsewhere that eschew flash for natural light that doesn't fully reveal faces and makes me think of Tanizaki's, "In Praise of Shadows".  The imagination is freed to fill in gaps.  In the interview he talks about yin and yang, and how modern society has been destroying the yin (that which is in darkness or not visible) while focusing inordinately on yang.  How darkness is seen as bad.  I am struck by his answer to the question of what advice he would give to other photographers.

" I would say don't rush, because if you are young, it's very rare that you have already established your own philosophy or your own eyes.  Everybody has their own philosophy, but we need time to identify its nature.  It's nobody's but yours.  The world thinks it needs to be in a hurry, so education is based on speed.  Society wants people who are easy to handle.  So you start to rush things, even if you don't intend to, and start moving toward the 'yang' part, even if you were looking for 'yin.'  You use a flash, because you want to see 'invisible' things.  You show it to people, and say, "Look, this is the invisible part!"  But is it really still the invisible part?  So from this point of view, my work is very fragile.  Speed can be a very dangerous thing." 

"If you're young and want to become a photographer, it's good to experience many things.  The important thing is that you can't learn the things that you want to see from anybody else.  In the same way you listen to your body, asking, "What do you want to eat today?" you need to listen to your nature.  If you don't, you will be stuck in true darkness and lose the ability to realize the darkness."

"There are many lost people in the world.  They like chaotic work, because they feel the same thing inside of them.  If you want to be a part of that chaos, to be disconnected from your nature, and if you want to be surrounded by lost people, and you are happy with that, then you should do so.  Become a refugee from yourself.  But if you want to find your truth, you need to find your own unique place.  Sometimes it's not a very prestigious place, and you may have to arrive there alone.  But once you find it, your life will be more peaceful."