Visual Testament -- Photographer's Legacy Reveals The Aftermath Of The Atomic Bomb

"On Aug. 9, just after lunch, we heard the news that another New Style Bomb had hit Nagasaki . . . I was dispatched immediately to the scene to take photographs. . ."

Then 28 years old, Yosuke Yamahata was sent as a propaganda photographer by the Japanese Army to document the effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945.

Traveling with an artist and writer, he arrived at dawn, stumbling over animal and human corpses, the scene lit by hundreds of what looked to him like "little elf fires" across the roadless landscape. By the time they reached the center of the explosion, there were no corpses to be seen; all living things had been turned to powder. It was less than 24 hours after the bombing.

By nightfall, he had completed the most extensive photographic record of the immediate aftermath of the bombings of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, taking about 119 images.

About half those photos can be seen in Seattle this month, in the exhibit, "Nagasaki Journey: The Photographs of Yosuke Yamahata," being divided between the Seattle Central and South Seattle Community Colleges.

This is the first time such a complete collection of the powerful photographs has been presented to the public. Says exhibit co-producer Chris Beaver: "We never actually saw what the bomb had done - until this was presented."

In contrast to Yamahata's legacy, only five known photographs were made after the Hiroshima bombing three days before; the photos were taken by a private citizen who had a photo shop in his wife's beauty parlor.

Photos also were taken when American occupation forces moved in to Nagasaki a month later, but by then, the streets had been cleared and most of the bodies have been removed.

In any case, The American military banned publication of photos of the atomic bombings or any further photos of atomic bomb sites for seven years until 1952. (The American media published photos of the mushroom clouds, but nothing of the destruction on the ground.)

Yamahata never turned his photos over to the Army, later expressing gratitude that the Japanese Army hadn't gotten hold of them, as they might have used them to lobby for prolonging the war. In later years, he gave anybody who asked permission to print the photos, though only a few were shown here and there.

"The poetic sense is that he started the day as a propaganda photographer, and ended the day as somebody who wanted the photos to prevent war," says Beaver, who discovered the photos in Japan in 1979 while doing research for a film about the nuclear industry, "Dark Circle."

Beaver came across a book of images of the bombing: "I noticed that all the photos that caught my eye were taken by one man, and on the same day, and that no other pictures were taken that soon after the bombing. His always seemed to be the most telling.

"He'd done done such an incredible job as a journalistic photographer, getting both the overview and the small detail, the human touch - the mother breastfeeding a child, a wooden cart tossed on a dead horse." Mother and child lying dead at a street-car station, teeth shining white against muddied faces. A woman who'd been outside the blast area returns to find her mother's charred body, identified by distinctive hairpins.

"I became very fascinated," says Beaver. "Who was he? Why on one day?"

Yamahata's only essay

Beaver tracked down Yamahata's family for permission to use the photos for his film, which won an Emmy in 1990. Son Shogo told him as much as he knew of his father. Yosuke Yamahata's father was a prominent photo-studio owner, who, via contacts with the military had gotten his son the wartime photo job. Yosuke spoke rarely about the photos, writing only one essay about them in 1952.

"It is perhaps unforgiveable but in fact at the time I was completely calm and composed," he wrote in that essay. "In other words, perhaps it was just too much, too enormous to absorb."

After the war, he returned to commercial photography. He died of cancer in 1966, at 48.

Over the years, Beaver tried to interest several galleries in a Yamahata exhibit with no success.

But when he realized that the 50th anniversary of the bomb and the end of World War II was approaching, it occurred to him the time might finally have arrived for an exhibit.

He got positive response and funding from organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, William Bingham Foundation, and others.

In the course of the project, another 20 Yamahata photographs were recovered. Shogo Yamahata (now an art dealer) hand carried the original 35mm negatives to San Francisco where computer technology was used to retouch and restore them.

The collection of 40 gelatin silver prints and 15 inkjet prints opened in Nagasaki, New York and San Francisco in August, and now is touring.

In Nagasaki, it got its most astounding reception. Beaver says he thought the show should be shared with Japan, but had no idea on the impact it would have:

"Nearly 10,000 people came in 12 days. I was there; it was families, three generations, grandparents and infants in arms, the family talking about what they'd gone through, people figuring out where they had been. One man kept searching for a photo of his brother who had vanished. He was hoping for a body, even a scene near where they live. (He never found it.) People came for all these reasons."

The exhibit opened Tuesday here and will be at Seattle Central through Jan. 19 and at South Seattle through Jan. 31. Unfortunately, there wasn't the space to put all of the exhibit in one place, and the full impact isn't felt with only the partial collection, though Central's art gallery director Tina Young says an added benefit to the division is it will reach a broader audience.

There also will be a community forum, Remembering Nagasaki, at noon Jan. 11 with speakers including a survivor from Nagasaki living in Seattle, Beaver and co-producer Judy Irving (location is still uncertain, call 344-4379).

Occupation film, Enola photos

Shown continuously as part of the exhibit is a moving, 28-minute film produced by Beaver and Irving of IDG Films, about the aftermath of the bombing from the point of view of two Japanese survivors and U.S. Marine who was in the occupation. The film features footage of the U.S. military occupation of Japan, including never-before-seen color footage shot by the U.S. Marine Corps.

"Herbert Sussan, the man who took the color footage for the U.S. Army, was a producer at CBS News with Edward R. Murrow. I interviewed him before he died, and he said when he came back to the U.S. from Japan, he thought, `This is a message for humanity, we'll release it through the United Nations.' He was carrying the cans (of film), and the Army escort took it away from him right then. He was assigned to guard the footage, which was classified, and when he retired in the 1970s, it was turned over to the archives."

At the time he began planning the Yamahata exhibit, Beaver didn't know about the Smithsonian Institution's plans for what would become the controversial Enola Gay exhibit. But his exhibit does include eight photographs that were removed under pressure.

It is not hard to understand why some would not want them shown.

Says Beaver: "In Japan, they say that 65 percent of the casualties in Nagasaki were under the age of 10; because the men had gone off to war, the city was women and children and infirm, the very old and very young, that's who was destroyed in that bomb.

"Those are the lessons to be learned, from the exhibit. And the unnamed lessons, that each viewer will walk away with."

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Where to see it.

Seattle Central Community College Art Gallery, 1701 Broadway, to Jan. 19, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Tuesday-Wednesday, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Details: 344-4379 South Seattle Community College, Student Center Art Gallery, 6000 16th Ave. S.W., Jan. 2-31, Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Wednesday, 5-7 p.m. 768-6750