Although this picture could have been taken during the pandemic (he's wearing a mask), it's not the case. I took it in spring 2018, when I was traveling for several months in Japan, with my Rolleiflex. I arrived there after a month crossing Russia by train, in the cold, and the cherry blossom trees were blooming in the Japanese parks. This old man at the dusk of his life, standing still under this curved blooming tree, is still for me, a few years later, a beautiful metaphor of life.