Ishikawa believes that all existence has two extremes and often fluctuates in between the two. Sometimes the fluctuations happen repeatedly. Light and Darkness, Movement and Stillness, Life and Death… Ishikawa feels that the Japanese are really good at embodying such in-between states. For instance in the Japanese Buddhist tradition and belief, the River of Three Crossings flows between Life and Death and a bridge comes on top of the River. If one finishes crossing the bridge, he/she dies; if one manages to return without crossing the whole bridge, he/she lives; if one stays on the bridge, however, he/she is neither dead nor alive. Ishikawa carefully observed details in the Japanese culture and found many proofs in which the culture is positioned in such in-between state. This is why he is always strongly motivated to capture these momentary conditions – neither Light nor Darkness; Movement nor Stillness; Life nor Death – in his works, sometimes by blending the two extremes and sometimes by altering the time gap in between the extremes. “When these contradicting opposites blend together, beauty and feeling of strangeness emerge and radiate these captured moments,” states Ishikawa.