This book features fifty-one photographs by Ryuichi Ishikawa, an emerging photographer born in Okinawa, taken in a mountain he has visited repeatedly since 2015.

Ryuichi has published provocative photography books, such as *A Grand Polyphony* (for which he won the Kimura Ihei Award) and *okinawan portraits*, consistently exploring ways of life. By capturing everyday scenes and portraits, he strives to embrace all surrounding phenomena and existences without bias. In the mountain, Ryuichi encountered both life and death in equal measure, feeling his own existence dissolve. Yet, he continued to take pictures.

The images in this volume blur the boundaries between humans and nature, nullifying individuality and reversing the roles of the internal and external. They reveal the transience and interconnectedness of lives, prompting reflection on the meaning of existence.

*The Inside of Life* is presented as a portfolio, a collection of large-format prints that allow viewers to fully appreciate each image and the lives Ryuichi has intensely observed.

"When I entered the mountains and confronted nature, everything seemed to flow around me, rendering my own will meaningless. I felt it was a place where I had to face myself, relying solely on the senses of my entire body. When the rocks or grass I desperately clutched with my hands slipped away down the sheer cliff, my head was plunged into chaos, and communication with my body was numbed. Each time I saw a snow slope filling a gorge, the thought of it collapsing beneath my feet and burying me would cross my mind, leaving me almost unable to stand, my extremities trembling violently.

At all times, life and death were simply present before my eyes. The rainbow trout caught deep in the mountains, with nothing in its stomach but a swarm of stink bugs; the pool at the mountain's peak, reached after venturing into true wilderness, where so many forest green tree frogs had gathered to lay their eggs, only to be attacked by mountain birds. Most of those frogs were not entirely consumed, but had their eyes squeezed out, their bellies ruptured, with eggs leaking out thickly.

To survive the days I spent amidst this nature with Mr. Bunsho Hattori, we picked many plants and captured, killed, and ate animals numerous times. I was so grateful to acquire food; everything tasted delicious. Walking long distances each day and then eating gave me the sensation of that energy spreading to every corner of my continually working body, and the more natural the food I put into my mouth, the better it felt. When I did so, the tinge of regret I felt that I myself had not perished within the workings of nature, the tinge of guilt I felt at my existence within this natural world, and all the thoughts and philosophies that arose in my head were surpassed by a feeling of being alive that surged through my body.

The sensations of touching flesh and blood, the smooth and firm feel of internal organs, their weight, were erotic. The smell released from inside stomachs and intestines increased my worries about coming into contact with bacteria and parasites, and as if responding internally, my body felt both sick and a surge of excitement. Organs are far more functional than any machine, and their beauty seemed perfect to me. I felt that feelings and sensations I couldn't understand through mere thought were all originating from here. The sight of them creating something beyond their individual existence and intent overlapped for me with the overgrown trees and craggy rocks.

When I touched upon the inside of life and became aware of that overwhelming power, the divisions between all things became connected by a gentle gradation, and I felt myself also placed within that cycle."

Extracted from the afterword by Ryuichi Ishikawa, *The Inside of Life*