Sakura (桜)

Cherry blossom is appearing all over Japan at the moment, and I’m lucky enough to be seeing it happen. Admittedly most of the blossom I have seen so far has been set against leaden grey skys, so this picture is something of a concept piece – how I imagine the trees would look in front of a clear blue sky. It was also an exercise in how to portray backlighting in a vector graphics image – in that regard at least it sort of works.

This blossom is celebrated in Japan as a reminder of the fleeting beauty and impermanence of life – a useful lesson to remember perhaps …