Here’s my full set of 161 images from the nuclear protests during the summer of 2011 in Tokyo after the massive earthquake, tsunami, and accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. I went to multiple protests but only shot a couple of them. For these photos I used my old Canon 30D and a 50mm lens and I intentionally got as close to each subject as possible. I like getting close so it’s obvious I’m shooting you and I’m in your space. I’ve never liked the concept of hiding in the woods with a long lens. There were hundreds of thousands of people at these protests and it was hot, sweaty, and intense. B&W seemed fitting given the situation.
Here’s the luckiest photo I’ve ever taken. I was inside a bullet train stopped at a station. We were waiting too long so I figured an express train was coming. They are hard to hear coming because they are going so fast so I just clicked when I thought it would be there. Poof! Full speed ripping through the station! And what’s better is that image was shot with a Canon PowerShot, which is probably the slowest camera on the planet.
Hope they aren’t talking to each other! But give these kids some credit — they are polite enough to line up nicely tucked to one side to give people room to navigate the stairs. Moments earlier the scene was filled with people but they didn’t budge or miss a swipe. Their concentration is perfect. Never let anyone tell you that people can’t focus these days with all the distractions we have to deal with these days.
Ōura Tenshudō was built in 1864 in Nagasaki and survived the nuclear bombing in 1945 and also 150 years of quakes. I spent a bit of time inside just sitting down and being in the space and thinking about all that history. What was it like to be there? After I took this image outside I had a fascinating conversation with an old man who grew up right there and who lived through it all. He was standing right by me as I shot the image. He was a kid in 1945. Later I went to his home and had some tea.
I was in Ahmedabad, India a few weeks ago and came by these four kids on the side of the street here. It’s actually a two-shot sequence. The girl in the red dress there in the middle off to the left actually made eye contact with me a couple of shots earlier. I was able to grab that. But the image didn’t really come out that well because there were some other things in the way. But then, just a split second later, I got this image. It struck me because these kids are my daughter’s age, and they’re obviously in circumstances that I can’t even imagine.
As soon as they saw me with my camera they gave me these three beautiful smiles right on cue. And especially the little kid in the purple shirt in the front there, she’s really hamming it up. And look at the expression on the girl on the left in the light blue pants. She looks a little shy as she’s holding her hands that way. But just four really, really beautiful smiles. And that was it. I only got two shots, one that didn’t work, and this one that worked well. I was thinking of cropping off the bottom a little bit there. But then I said, you know, I’m just going to leave the crop straight out of the camera because then you can see that they’re actually on the sidewalk.
I think about them. When I shoot people on the streets in circumstances that I can’t even imagine, I often think about them afterwards. I wonder where they are now. I wonder if they are ok. They seem like good kids.
