The Last Survivors of an Atomic Bomb
Kentaro Takahashi's portraits recall Hiroshima & Nagasaki
I don’t often talk about my day job.
Actually, I’m not sure I have ever mentioned it. Most folks assume that I make my living doing FlakPhoto, but I work for a nonprofit called Outrider Foundation here in Madison. We do many things, and our projects focus on funding journalism and multimedia storytelling about nuclear threats and climate change. Occasionally, our partners produce photography. I want to share some of it with you today.
Earlier this year, we supported a project by The New York Times, a limited-run reporting series about nuclear threats called “At the Brink,” and this week, the Times published two stories reflecting on the 79th anniversary of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945. That feels like a lifetime ago — it was — and yet, there are still survivors who experienced these horrendous events, which is remarkable when you think about it. Their memory is still with us.
One of these stories is The Last Survivors Speak. It’s Time to Listen., an interactive feature showing portraits of the bomb survivors at home in Japan. These are moving pictures paired with memories connected to the bombings. It’s a powerful piece, and I hope you read it. These links are in front of the paywall, so you should be able to share them with family and friends.
I always read the bylines when photography catches my eye, and I was intrigued when I learned that Kentaro Takahashi made these portraits. I looked him up on Instagram and was surprised and delighted to see he was following my FlakPhoto posts there. Small world! I asked if we could show some of these pictures in the newsletter, and Kentaro graciously agreed.
Portraits are some of my favorite photographs. People are fascinating, and their pictures can provide insights into their lives. Kentaro is a sensitive imagemaker; you can see his intimate connection with his subjects in these images. The Times piece is compelling because Kentaro’s portraits are paired with stories from these survivors, putting a living face to these horrific memories from the past.
I hope you’ll spend time with Kentaro’s survivor portraits this week. If they resonate, you can listen to two survivors, Chieko Kiriake and Keiko Ogura, tell their stories in a companion audio essay from Times Opinion. Hearing their voices and realizing these events are still part of their memory is extremely powerful.
After reading these stories, I was happy to connect with Kentaro, and we have begun corresponding by email. I still have much to learn about his photography, and I’m looking forward to it. Please make some time to visit his website. You can read more about his work in this interview with Joerg Colberg, published in 2014. And if you like what you see, please follow Kentaro on Instagram. I am now and hope you will, too.
Finally, you can read more about our work at Outrider Foundation on our website. We also publish a newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
Thanks for looking, friends. Have a good weekend. Take care.
Andy, the work you are doing is phenomenally good. Just read the post about survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it prompted me to change my membership from 50 to 100 dollars per year. Furthermore, I visited the Outrider Foundation—it's remarkable in terms of depth and breadth. And it is visually stunning—attributable to you, no doubt. I've subscribed to the newsletter.
I am the Multimedia and Publications Producer at the Rhode Island Foundation—we're totally state-centric so we don't deal with the global crises of Outrider; however, sometimes it feels that the state crises are big enough, even in a tiny state like RI, especially since we are the only community foundation in the state. Affordable housing, public education, healthcare, workforce development and economic security, climate action and resilience (we have 400 miles of coastline), and civic participation keep us fully engaged. Thank you for what you do. Connie Grosch
Thank you for this beautiful and important post. I read the New York Times article, and it stirred up so many emotions, it is necessary to continue talking about the irreversible damage and threat of nuclear weapons. I grew up in a country where, as children, we were always taught not to forget the horrors of the war (WW2) and may they never be repeated. Then in the 90s, as my generation was just out of high-school, the horror of war happened again. It was hard to imagine it possible, the first time the bombers flew over the city everyone went out to the balconies and windows, looking to the sky, amazed, as if watching a movie… until the bombs started falling and the reality truly hit us, in every sense. So, saying “may it never happen again” is not enough, although it is a start, and the world needs to be reminded of it constantly, the new generations educated about it and all the long term consequences in depth, to truly understand. Maybe this is what a shared responsibility truly is. Thank you for doing it.