Before the Dark
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PrizeHonorable Mention
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PhotographerYukio Nodo, Japan
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Date of Photograph14 February 2026
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Website
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Instagram
The sun sinks behind cloud, and for a few minutes the old rocks soften at their edges — black towers the sea has been shaping for longer than anyone can remember. I stood among the wet stones in the failing light, where the waves never quite settle, and felt how brief warmth is, and how long the stone endures. Some sunsets dazzle; this one only whispered — and that is the one that stays.
I am a Japan-based landscape and nightscape photographer. My work explores landscapes not simply as scenery, but as places shaped by the quiet interplay of light, time, and the broader rhythms of nature. I am drawn to moments where the movements of the Earth and the sky intersect with traces of human presence. Rather than seeking dramatic spectacle, I focus on subtle transitions: how light shifts and how time settles into the land. Photography, for me, is a way of tracing these invisible layers and preserving fleeting relationships between the Earth, the sky, and the places we inhabit.
Awards Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) 2025
- Finalist, Best Single Images in a Portfolio (Landscape, Weather & Climate)
Tokyo International Foto Awards (TIFA) 2025
- Gold Winner, Editorial / Environmental - "White Wounds"
- Gold Winner, Nature / Trees - "Ephemeral Dialogues"
- Silver Winner, Nature / Astrophotography - "Rocks on Earth Dream of Stars"
Budapest International Foto Awards (BIFA) 2025
- Silver Winner, Nature / Astrophotography - "Arch of The Ancients"
- Bronze Winner, Nature / Astrophotography - "Where Time Sleeps"
- Bronze Winner, Architecture / Industrial - "White Wounds"
Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3) 2025
- Bronze Winner, Nature / Water - "The Passage of Trials"
- Bronze Winner, Press / Nature & Environmental - "White Wounds"
Vixen 6th Starry Sky Photo Contest 2025
- Award of Excellence - "Orion Lands on the Snowy Peaks"