In his series “Locked in the Ether”, he froze colorful flowers in blocks of ice. And by photographing the thawing process, he created contrasts between the frozen beauties and the rapidly wilting dead flowers outside of the ice.In this project, the state of the flowers locked in ice is a metaphor of perpetual present. And the state of the melting ice is a metaphor of time going by. The flowers locked in ice are beautiful. But Shibata felt as if the flowers were crying for freedom. Then when the ice begins to melt, the flowers are now tossed back into the merciless cycle of time and will soon wither away. He is attracted by such a contradiction. Accees