Hiroshima Mon Amour: Schoolchildren with Butterfly Nets around Abombed Trees

Friday, October 16

I had photographed these A-Bombed trees before but was determined to get INSIDE the chainlink fence and into the schoolyard. Just as I was reaching the end of my complete circumnavulation (is this a word?) around the locked and fenced schoolyard, a woman came through the gate and she got me in! As I was getting chewed alive by mosquitoes while photographing these magnificent trees that survived closer to the A-Bomb's hypocenter and were transplanted here in 1989, some children came running through with butterfly nets and insect cages.....

Looking up - a lonely red birdhouse

the children seemed as puzzled by this foamy funghi in a tree as I was

a boy undoubtedly scratching his own mosquito bites by the A-Bombed tree

a nearby playground structure

the school

I spend so much of my time walking this city and finding such joyful things - of course this made me think of Joy Drury Cox:

someone's driveway

flowers / cosmos in my room

a forgotten building in our neighborhood

a hotel wall right around the corner from home

the sweetest kindergarten boy with his 3 month old baby brother

world friendship center - where we have breakfast every morning

these shinto paper "flags" are everywhere right now - must be a holiday of some sort - will find out tomorrow

I Love Shiso Leaves - here is a bag for 90 cents.....so good as tempura

so many great timeless styles here - the sartorialist

tailor shop

cashier at vintage store - love her

boys in peace park

boys at the Honkawa School

shadows near the dome

seed pods

love this color combination and space

night tree

In the Honkawa school - rebuilt but an old section remains from the A-bomb and is now a museum, there is this photograph of an injured / sick person being brought to the hospital by cart

when you walk into the museum section, unattended

love this message on the comments notebook: WE ARE NOT ABE (the prime minister of Japan, pro-business = pro-nuclear. The majority of Japanese people do not vote but they also dislike Abe and are against nuclear power.)

deformed helmet

Photographs of a survivor wearing the tattered clothes in the case beside the pictures

melted glass

rusted, deformed rifle

photograph of the school after the bombing

A-Bombed marbles

replica of Hiroshima that was on exhibit in the Peace Museum but was moved here.

old sign with a map for the school

Before we went to Honkawa school, Bernd and I went to meet the man, Okihiro Terao, an In Utero A-Bomb Survivor, who made 2 impeccable stain glass replicas of the A-Bomb Dome - before and after

With the help of this dedicated man, also an In-Utero ABomb Survivor, Kosei Mito, who speaks excellent English and translated for us, we were able to communicate with the glass maker. I hope to be curating a big 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2020 and I would love to open the show with the pre-bombed glass replica and end the show with the bombed replica...

Mr. Kosei Mito has many folders and notebooks in multiple languages for people to read in the shade. They arte filled with information - like this photograph of girls adding names to the registry of the dead - a ceremony each year. His name will be entered here when he dies, and stored under the cenotaph.

From Mr. Okihiro Terao's story - he made the glass replicas:

Yesterday I gave a lecture on my work as part of the Atomic Photographers Guild exhibition, in which my work is included. This is the audience and a man asking a question about what American children learn about the A-Bomb now.