Jan 3 Tip: Photographing Hiroshima, Fukushima & everything in between

Photographing Hiroshima, Fukushima & everything in between

(The January 3 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/photographing-hiroshima-fukushima-and-everything-in-between/

Kikujiro Fukushima’s life in photography took off when he promised to avenge the Hiroshima bombing. It was 1952, and Mr. Fukushima — a watchmaker, volunteer social worker and photographer — met Sugimatsu Nakamura, a 43-year-old fisherman, who was gravely ill from the atomic bomb’s effects.

“For the first two years I was too timid to photograph him,” Mr. Fukushimatold me a few weeks ago. “But one day, he got on his knees, crying, and begged me.”

“Fukushima, can you please take revenge on the atomic bomb?”

“Yes, but how?”

“Take pictures of my pain and let the world know how terrible it is.”

Mr. Nakamura was not only angry about the bombing, but also with the Japanese government, which refused to provide proper care for its victims. Mr. Fukushima understood this well — he had been in the Japanese military, stationed in Hiroshima until one week before the bombing, when he was transferred to prepare for a suicide mission. Most of his comrades who stayed behind were killed.

Mr. Nakamura died in 1967, but the documentary filmmaker Saburo Hasegawa believes that the vow Mr. Fukushima made to the ailing fisherman guided his subsequent career, in which he photographed individuals fighting social injustice. During the social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Fukushima photographed student and feminist movements, antiwar protests and industrial pollution. He even infiltrated Japan’s Self-Defense Forces by telling the head of public affairs that he would gladly give it free pictures if it gave him access.