After consulting thousands of YouTube videos, I ended up at Kyoto’s famed Arashiyama Bamboo Grove on an early, windy winter morning.

There was no sign of another soul, the komorebi felt magical. It was just like the windows wallpapers I saw as a kid.

To technically acheive this though, I had to denoise the image so it becomes blurry. Even though it makes the leaves lose sharpness - it lets the viewer focus more on how the photo makes them feel, instead of thinking about the specifics. In this case, it makes me feel that I’m standing under an all encompassing canopy, with light gently hitting my face, the leaves rustling while moving fluidly with the wind.

Denoising makes photos feel like otherworldly paintings - and that’s as close as I’ll get to touching a canvas.