Sakura - a journey through Japan

About

Oliver Bryant's first solo exhibition draws on two trips to Japan, taken in 2025 and 2026. The work spans Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Aomori, moving between urban and rural, colour and monochrome. The connection to Japan started at university, through a language exchange that introduced him to Japanese students and a culture that stayed with him. He finally made the trip. Here's what he discovered.

It started with a Kodak EasyShare at age seven. Oliver has been photographing seriously since 2022, and for him it is as much about getting out into the world as it is about the images themselves.

He shoots across both digital and film, often using multiple cameras on the same trip, each chosen for what it does best. On his Japan trips he has shot with a Nikon ZFC, Ricoh GRIII, Fujifilm TX-30 II, Nikon Z50II and a Pentax 17, among others. At Mount Fuji, it was the Fujifilm that caught an eagle crossing the sky. At 3am on the same trip, the Nikon was ready when a black kite snatched a fish from the water. Film negatives are processed by a lab and used as shot, with no digital editing, because Oliver values the tone and colour the film itself brings. Digital work is edited with a light touch, keeping things as close to natural as possible.

Beyond Japan, Oliver has photographed in Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Germany and Greece. In 2025 his image "Bearmusement", taken in Berlin, won the Disabled Photographers' Society's Preliminary Nature Print competition. He is a member of both the Disabled Photographers' Society and the Royal Photographic Society. Until 2026 his work has been shown exclusively through online virtual galleries. This exhibition marks his first physical show.