In today's information saturated world, finding your unique style feels more difficult than ever. For photographers and other artists, social media is a convenient tool for instant inspiration.

But it can also make you feel like whatever you create is just a copy of someone else's work in this modern age. I'd like to introduce a Japanese proverb that can help guide you toward discovering your artistic style.

Fueki Ryuko (不易流行).

Fueki means an unchanging truth that transcends time. Ryuko: the ever-shifting trends that evolve with changing times and environments.

Together, this phrase expresses the idea that it's essential to harmonize what is timeless with what changes with the times and circumstances. Let's look at history behind this saying. The concept of Fueki Ryuko originates in the high poetry of Japan's Edo period and was influenced by Zen teachings.

The Edo period was an era when Japanese culture developed rapidly, creating a unique coexistence of tradition and innovation. Within this context, the idea of Fueki Ryuko became rooted as a way to balance the preservation and evolution of art and culture.

The person who most embodied this concept in Haiku, a traditional Japanese poetic form, was Matsuo Basho, a poet of the Edo era. In Kyo Rai Syo, a compilation of Basho's idea on Haiku, he wrote about Fueki Ryuko in these words. This is a complex expression even in Japanese. But put simply, it means without understanding what is unchanging, you cannot build a foundation. Without understanding what changes, you cannot bring forth anything new.

For Basho, Fueki was an essential sensibility and core expression of Haiku. By Ryuko meant embracing new forms and expressions that suited the times and changing emotions.

He honored the traditional forms while evolving the style and content of haiku. For example, his famous poem:

An old pond,

a frog jumps in

the sound of water,

captures an ancient timeless scene of nature but brings it to life by focusing on a momentary sound expressing the sense of the present. This piece perfectly reflects the spirit of Fueki Ryuko. Basho's influence extended beyond haiku, inspiring generations of artists and thinkers to respect both tradition and innovation. In this way, Fueki Ryuko remains a meaningful philosophy that continues to guide us today in finding balance between preserving the past and embracing change.

This attitude is still visible in Japanese culture today. Japan is often seen as very conservative and traditional. Yet at the same time, its fashion, architecture, and technology can be advanced.

This very tension guided by the philosophy of Fueki Ryuko gives the country a unique appeal that cannot be found elsewhere.

So, how can we apply this philosophy to photography and art? In our era, when we are constantly exposed to countless other people's work, I think it's almost impossible to create something entirely original, untouched by any influence. But this isn't unique to our time. Artists throughout history have always created new work while building on what came before them.

What this tells us is that we should accept the reality that we are influenced by new information as we make what we want to make. The question of balancing the old and the new is not a modern debate. Basho explored this in the Edo period and it's a question that has been asked for a thousand or even 2,000 years.

Images that always come to my mind are Japan's first color photograph said to have been taken by Kimbei Kusakabe in the 1800s.

When it comes to the look of photography, a classic vintage aesthetic is still popular today and often admired. But Japan's oldest vintage photos are even in fact far from the nostalgic vintage look we associate with the world. They are experimental even by today's standards. Of course, studying history is important, but history itself is a collection of new challenges taken on each era. In that sense, by not being overly obsessed with history and trying new styles, perhaps we too can become part of history.

So far I've talked about Ryuko, the part about embracing the new through the lens of photographic style. Now I'd like to touch on Fueki the timeless part. When it comes to the narrative in photography, but you want to express through your work. There's so much to learn from what is unchanging. This can mean learning from the ways great artists of the past turn their thoughts into tangible works. But it can also mean digging into the parts of yourself that never change. The experiences and emotions you have build up over your life.

How you interpret those memories may change as you move through different stages of life. But the fact of what you felt and experienced in the past cannot be altered. By deeply exploring this unchanging part of yourself, you may find something only you can express through your art.

Most people understand at least in theory the bulls learning from the past and embracing the new are important, but living the balance out in practice is incredibly difficult. There's no single right answer to how to balance them. But I think we can still learn something from the thinking of great Japanese poets like Basho. When you realize that the tension between old and new has been debated for thousand of years, you can appreciate how hard it is to live by this balance. At the same time, you can feel reassured that even if you can't get it perfectly right, what you create in a process of trying has real value.