Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. A short train ride from Kamakura (another popular tourist area), Enoshima is connected to the mainland by a short bridge and has a variety of attractions including several shrines, a park, an observation tower, and a cave.
On our first Valentine's Day together, Rich and I met on the train for a day trip to Enoshima. When he got on the train he immediately laughed at me, then unzipped his hoodie to reveal that we had inadvertently dressed the same for the occasion. Instead of being mortified, he was excited.
"Great minds," he said, leaving the phrase unfinished.
We spent the day wandering around, having a nice lunch in a small shop, exploring the caves, making offerings at the shrine, and watching the seasonal light displays known in Japan as “illumination”. One particular display caught Rich's eye, and we spent a long time sat in front of it as he took dozens of photos with his camera.
I didn't know at the time what he was doing, but I poked fun at him for his persistence in getting the "right shot". Eventually I took this photo and texted him as a joke.
I'd learn in the years following this little day trip that to go anywhere with a photographer meant to wait in front of pretty objects while they figured out how they wanted to capture the moment just right.
In the weeks that followed Rich's passing, I finally had the mental resilience to start going through his photographs again. We had started going through them together, but only made it until about 2007 when he started to feel too unwell to keep going.
As I flipped through his in chronological order, I wondered if I'd be able to find familiar scenes from our time together, and skipped ahead to 2015-2016 to see if any of our adventures in Japan made the cut.
Sure enough, I came across a series of photos from that Valentine's Day trip, with the disco ball turned to this thread-like image as its many photographs showed it twisting in the wind.
Little did I know that day that this was what he would be making with his photographs.