Fragile
April 15th, 2020
Tsukasa Uchida
April 12th, 2020
..April 2020.. ..Nagasaki..
I received sad news that Mr. Tsukasa Uchida passed away on April 6th 2020. He was 90 years old and had been in the hospital for months.
Mr. Uchida experienced the atomic bombing of Nagasaki when he was 15 years old. He was rescued from underneath rubble at the Ohashi Plant of the Mitsubishi Arms Factory about a mile north of the hypocenter. Using a broken stick as a cane he struggled to get away from the burning factory and found refugee on a mountain.
When I photographed Mr. Uchida in 2016 he was in fragile condition but had a sharp mind. He spoke about his experiences in exact detail for two hours.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to have met such a brave person. Mr. Uchida has taught many people about the horrors of nuclear weapons. His passing is a great loss to humanity.
“I was heading to the rescue train using a wood stick.
There were rice fields on the way, I found something in there.
On first sight, I thought they were pumpkins, but they were human heads.”
-Tsukasa Uchida
私は木の棒をついて救援列車に向かった。
そこまでの道に田んぼがあり、その中にかぼちゃかなと思ったら、
人間の首が5つか6つ転がっていた。
内田伯
Marie
April 9th, 2020
Embrace featured in Tokyo Weekender Magazine
April 8th, 2020..April 2020.. ..Tokyo..
Tokyo Weekender Magazine did a feature about Embrace. Embrace is my project featuring portraits of transgender and gender non-binary people from different parts of the world.
The project will be exhibited at Gallery ef in Tokyo from September 2nd-October 25th.
This is the digital link to the magazine. https://www.tokyoweekender.com/weekender-archives/
If you click on the first cover (April 2020) then go to page 28 the article about Embrace begins.
Fragile
April 5th, 2020
Fragile
April 2nd, 2020
New Synagogue, Dresden
March 31st, 2020
Haruyo Nihei
March 6th, 2020
“I survived by the grace of the deceased.
But to stop history from repeating itself I have to speak.”
-Haruyo Nihei, Tokyo firebomb survivor
Mrs. Haruyo Nihei experienced the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 10th, 1945. Bombers carpeted Tokyo with spread incendiary bombs for hours and after the bombing ceased, the city was wrapped in flames. Almost everything burnt in the city.
“The fire died down because there was nothing left to be burnt. I remember walking the site of fire, by stepping over charred bodies”
When the bombing started she began to escape with her family, but the flames cornered her and
she was separated from them. The streets were full of panic. She fell down and fainted. People then piled
on top of her. She, and others near the bottom of the pile, survived because the people near the top
bore the brunt of the inferno.
This portrait is a part of my From Above project which featured portraits of atomic bomb and firebombing survivors from WWII. My limited edition book is available at http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=I1040&i&i2
Gunther Kannegießer
February 13th, 2020
On February 13th, 1945 the baroque city of Dresden, Germany was firebombed into cinder by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force. The attack was divided into three bombing raids dropping over 4,500 tons of high explosives, including incendiary bombs, onto the city known as “Florence on the Elbe.”
Gunther Kannegießer was never able to recover the bodies of his mother, brother and sister after the bombing of Dresden. For many years he searched lists of mass burial sites for their bodies.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and Reunification more information became available about the location of mass graves and who was in them. Spending the majority of his life looking for the location of the bodies, he found their names on a document for a mass grave at the Johannisfriedhof Cemetery.
In the back of the cemetery, three stones waist high are erected at the mass grave without any markings or a list of names. After Reunification a small monument was sculpted stating, “Here lays 3,660 civilians who died on February 13th, 1945.” The majority of the bodies in this mass grave were from Dresden Johannstadt, where Mr Kannegießer’s family lived.
This portrait is a part of my From Above project which featured portraits of atomic bomb and firebombing survivors from WWII. My limited edition book is available at https://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=I1040&i=&i2=
A selection of From Above portraits taken in Dresden and also including portraits of firebombing survivors from Coventry and Rotterdam, will be exhibited in the Dresden Neustadt during May. More information will be released closer to the opening.
Nora Lang
February 11th, 2020
“My father said, “The war will have an awful end. If we are separated from each other, you have to leave the town! Because there will be a battle for the town.”
–Nora Lang
On February 13th, 1945 the baroque city of Dresden, Germany was firebombed into cinder by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force. The attack was divided into three bombing raids dropping over 4,500 tons of high explosives, including incendiary bombs, onto the city known as “Florence on the Elbe.”
Nora Lang still lives close to where her original home was destroyed. From her living room window you can see the location of her old house. She is photographed next to a ruined church, Trinitatiskirche, one street from her home. Nora was 13 1/2 when Dresden was destroyed. Her family lived in Dresden-Johannstadt. They survived the first attack by taking shelter in their cellar. After the first attack they had to leave their burning home and experience hell as they were chased by the firestorm through burning streets. They tried to find shelter several times during the deadly second and third attack waves which lasted the entire night and didn’t succumb until the next morning.
This portrait is a part of my From Above
project which featured portraits of atomic bomb and firebombing
survivors from WWII. My limited edition book is available at
https://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=I1040&i=&i2=
A
selection of From Above portraits taken in Dresden and also including portraits of firebombing
survivors from Coventry and Rotterdam, will be exhibited in the Dresden
Neustadt during May. More information will be released closer to the opening.