..March 2016.. ..Tokyo..
From Above shown at Gallery EF during the 3/10 commemoration of the Tokyo fire bombings during WWII. A big thank you to Ikko Suzuki and Kirara Kawachi for having From Above be a part of their annual performance, Words From 100,000 People, that commemorate the lives of the men, women and children who died during horrific fire bombing on March 10th, 1945. Gallery EF is one of the few buildings that survived the attack which turned all of eastern Tokyo into scorched earth.
..March 10th, 1945.. ..on the banks of the Tatagawa River, Tokyo…
Mrs. Yoshiko Hashimoto
“We cannot listen to the voices that vanished near the hypocenter.
No matter how many testimonies I gather, a blank will remain.”
-Masahito Hirose
Today I received the sad news that Mr. Masahito Hirose passed away, two months before his 86th birthday. I photographed Mr. Hirose on my second trip to Nagasaki. He was 15 years old when the atomic bomb destroyed the city. He didn’t sustain any external injuries from the blast but suffered from cancer.
After the H-Bomb test on Bikini Atoll in 1954, Mr. Hirose devoted his life to collecting the testimonies of other hibaksuha (atomic bomb survivors). While recording the stories it allowed him to confront his own tragic experiences.
Mr. Hirose spoke fluent English so he was one of the few hibakusha I was able to speak with directly. His language skills were important because he was one of the first to translate the hibakusha’s testimony into English. When I first read about him I immiediately asked if I could meet him. I have always been grateful for his honesty and time.
He will be missed but never forgotten.
..January 2016.. ..New York..
Some holiday cards from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Rotterdam that I received from survivors I photographed for the From Above project.
..December 2015.. ..Hiroshima..
Sadly, 2015 saw the passing of atomic bomb survivor Mr. Toshifumi Ohashi, who I photographed for From Above. He passed away the day after speaking at my exhibition in New York. I was fortunate to have heard him one last time before he suddenly died.
I have a great deal of respect for what he endured and stood for later in life. I never understood why he thanked me so much for being interested in lives the lives of atomic bomb survivors because they naturally seemed like extraordinary people to me. They lived every moment demonstrating that peace begins with your actions then it can be spread exponentially.
I never had doubts about what they fought for. I need to thank them because they had more trust in me at times than I had in myself. I hope that my photographs will continue to carry on their message even though their voices have gone silent.
