10月中旬から下旬にかけて、山間部の広葉樹林は紅葉の絶頂を迎える。　多くの観光客、そして写真の愛好家が訪れSNSには多くの美しい写真が並ぶ。その紅葉が終わると葉は落ち、大地を彩った草紅葉はその色を失い枯れて色のない世界へと変わる。これらは写真作品として撮られることはあまりない。11月の森は実に寂しい。11月中旬に初雪が降り積もり山肌を覆うと景色は次の季節に入る。美しさを持たない枯葉や枯れ朽ちた枝、草は新雪という真っ白なカンバスを背景とすることにより新たな造形、美しさを見せてくれる。　11月の志賀高原を歩きそれらを写真に収めてみた。

From mid to late October, the deciduous forests of the mountain interior reach the peak of their autumn color. Tourists and photography enthusiasts arrive in numbers, and the feeds fill with brilliant images of foliage. But when that season ends, the leaves fall, the grasses that had dressed the earth in warm hues lose their color and wither, and the world turns quiet and bare. Few photographers are drawn to what remains. November in the forest is, quite simply, a lonely month. Then the first snow comes — mid-November — settling over the mountainsides and announcing the arrival of the next season. The dead leaves, the broken branches, the withered grasses that hold no particular beauty of their own: set against the pure white canvas of fresh snow, they reveal new forms, new beauty. What had seemed spent and colorless finds a quiet second life. I walked through Shiga Kogen in November, and tried to capture something of that.