Bronzen poort en de tombe van Ietsugu in het tempelcomplex Zojo-ji in Shiba, Tokyo, Japan before 1903

This black and white photograph of a bronze gate and tomb in Tokyo, Japan, was taken by Kusakabe Kimbei, though the date is unknown. There's so much depth to the image even without color; the architecture seems to reach into the beyond. Kimbei's eye makes the architecture seem almost like a drawing, the lines and shapes defining the form in a way that feels immediate and tactile. Look at the carvings on the gate. You can almost feel the textures of the wood, the artist's hand moving in and out of the material. The way the light filters through the trees in the background, creating these soft, diffused tones, it's very poetic. It reminds me of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who photographed industrial structures with a similar sense of objectivity, yet managed to reveal a strange beauty in the mundane. Kimbei invites us to see the spiritual not just as a concept, but as something embedded in the physical world. Art is always a conversation, a way of seeing that evolves over time.