Toshiya Shota

I first met Shota by chance in a small café in Hakata. He was looking through one of his own photo books — and in those quiet pages I saw a Fukuoka I had walked past for years without noticing. He doesn't simply take photographs. He seems to capture the breathing of the moment itself. He is a quiet person at first. But when the conversation turns to light or composition, his eyes soften and he will tell you, "The light just stopped, right there." What he shares with guests isn't really a photo walk — it's an hour or two of falling slowly in love with a corner of a city most visitors never see.