TEXT & PHOTO: RICHARD SAESONG

(For Thai, press here) 

Fireworks festivals in Japan, or Hanabi Taikai, are more than a spectacle of colours across the night sky. They are gatherings where people sit together beneath the stars, waiting for beauty that exists only for a fleeting moment. Each firework blooms like a flower—radiant, resplendent, and vanishing swiftly. It is precisely this transience that leaves its mark upon the heart. 

For me, attending the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival was a dream I had carried since childhood. In Japanese comics, I once saw crowds look up at skies ablaze with sparks, and I longed to witness that vision for myself. When at last I stood among the summer throngs, my camera did not merely capture bursts of light; it preserved the feelings and memories that tied me back to those childhood images—once confined to paper, now alive before my eyes. 

What made that night unforgettable was not only the fireworks but the atmosphere around me. Families spread picnic mats, shared food, and waited together. When the first explosion echoed, the sky bloomed in colour; elders gazed with serene eyes while children’s laughter rang across the park. It was a scene of warmth that bound countless strangers into one. And when the final spark faded, the sky returned to darkness. Yet what vanished above still glowed within: a reminder that beauty is not meant to last forever, but to teach us the value of each fleeting moment shared beneath the same sky.

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Richard Saesong is a 3D Modeling & Visualizer. Speaking may not be his most natural form of expression, so he turns to photography as a language of its own—one that reflects who he is and how he sees the world. Through tones, lines, subtle movements, and quiet atmospheres, his images remain simple and accessible, yet they preserve the depth and nuances of emotion in their entirety.

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