Kyoto Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight. I decided to name this series of paintings after the beautiful "Before" movie trilogy my wife introduced to me a few years back. During our trip to Japan in 2019, I fell in love with Kyoto, and it's probably my favorite city that I've visited so far. The sights, the history, the kindness of the locals—everything made it a moving experience. These paintings focus on the Hokan-ji Temple (or Yasaka-no-to Pagoda), which is a pretty popular sightseeing spot that I wasn't aware of at the time! We discovered it by chance, after simply turning around the corner during a night stroll through the city. It's for this very reason the spot is so special to me. After stumbling upon it, I decided to take photos of the structure at different times throughout the day to use as references for this painting series.