Yakushima is known as the island of water — a land where more than a hundred rivers carve their way through lush, ancient forests before meeting the sea. The inhabitants say it rains thirty-five days a month, and perhaps that is true; water is everywhere, shaping everything.

During a ten-week stay, I explored only three rivers, each just a few hundred metres long, yet each a world in itself. Their transformations were rapid and astonishing: sudden rains, storms, even a tropical cyclone, all reshaping their flow and texture. I alternated between river and coast — photographing at dawn, when light revealed the delicate dialogue between ocean and land.

In Yakushima, the water is pure enough to drink straight from the streams above the last villages — I did so often, without hesitation. The vegetation clings to the rock, leaving no soil to cloud the water. Everything here feels elemental, close to origin.

What mattered most was time — returning again and again to the same place until the unseen revealed itself. Sometimes a detail would appear only for an instant, like a faint perfume caught on the wind, calling me back each day to rediscover its source and savour its mystery.