Japan Photographers


Yoshito Matsushige
Yoshito Matsushige (1913-2005) was born in Kure, Hiroshima. As a photojournalist, he took five photographs on August 6, 1945, the day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. At the time of the explosion, Matsushige was at home, 2.7 km south of the hypocentre. He is the only person to have captured an immediate, first-hand photographic account of the bombing. Matsushige dedicated most of the rest of his life to organizing and preserving the photographic history of the atomic bombing of his hometown.
 
Hiromichi Matsuda
Hiromichi Matsuda (1900-1969) was working as a photographic technician at Kawanami Shipyard when the “Fat Man” atomic bomb hit Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. He took photographs of the mushroom cloud from the rooftop of the shipyard office and from ground level outside about ten minutes after the bombing.

 

Torahiko Ogawa
Torahiko Ogawa (1890-1960) was born in Tsukihi, Tokyo. After graduating from the Tokyo Photography Academy, he opened a studio in Nagasaki. At the request of the Nagasaki Prefecture, he photographed the devastated city between August 20 and September 30, 1945, and again in June 1946.

 

Yosuke Yamahata
Yosuke Yamahata (1917-1966) worked for the Japanese News and Information Bureau. The day after Nagasaki was destroyed by the atomic bomb, he was assigned to the Bureau’s Army division and sent to the city to document the fallout. Only a few photographs were published before a press ban was imposed. After the ban was lifted in 1952, Yamahata published his photographs in Atomized Nagasaki: The Bombing of Nagasaki – A Photographic Record.

 

See our publication “X-Ray Japan 1945

©Yoshito Matsushige, courtesy Daniel Blau, Munich