ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author references the work of contemporary Japanese photographers Rinko Kawauchi and Masao Yamamoto to illuminate and develop aspects of his own photographic research. Through photographic practice the author seeking to explore our human connection with living things, a timely enquiry since nature appears to have joined the urban as the focus of contemporary cultural discourse. A fundamental characteristic shared by both photography and phenomenological enquiry is that both begin with the world as it is presented to us: the multispecies world that is ‘already there’, before reflection begins. In using the camera as a tool, the author practice involves a direct, complex and dynamic bodily engagement with living things that are equally complex and dynamic. A human being interfaces the world through the senses, a process that gives rise to feelings, thoughts, emotions and imaginings. A nature that is undergoing constant change cannot be considered a preexisting reality but is instead continually emerging through time.
