Looking through a box of prints when I photographed Grasshopper from the band Mercury Rev. September 1998 feels like forever ago. Grasshopper was releasing his solo album Orbit of Eternal Grace on the Beggars Banquet record label. I instantly became a Mercury Rev fan after I heard the song Chasing a Bee. Their seminal album Deserter’s Songs was released a month after I took these photos.
Grasshopper was the first portrait session I had with a musician. The preceding year and a half, I was photographing Jane’s Addiction, The Cure and Radiohead while they toured. In July 98′, a friend told me that Beggars Banquet had put up a post on a chatboard searching for a photographer to take promotional shots of their artists. At the time, the internet was primitive and chat boards were the common way of connecting to people. Email just began to take hold of how young people communicated. Most people were still using phones attached to a wall.
I was photographing the Smashing Pumpkins tour, Adore. I drove up to NY with my 8×10 portfolio to show Leslie, the head of Beggars. My portfolio consisted of live band photographs. I told Leslie I had no clue how to photograph portraits but I wanted to try. I was practicing by photographing friends with a fisheye lens and cross-processing slide film. Cross processing was a fad in the 90’s that produced vibrant and unpredictable color shifts. Despite having no portrait experience, Leslie took a chance on me. This was an opportunity to return home and restart my young career. Eighteen months of touring bands had run its course. I wanted to photograph portraits of people while they were in their element.
After photographing my last show of the Smashing Pumpkins tour, I drove up I-95 in my dilapidated two-door 1984 Toyota which had logged 200,000 miles. The thick summertime air blew through the open window because I had no air conditioning. I was the only car sputtering on the highway at 2am until I got near the NY exits. It was a new start at 24-years-old. A real portrait assignment paying good money and a return to NY- the center of the economic boom the empire was experiencing!!! It was a different era than the NY blight that I grew-up in. In 98′, NY probably felt like what Rome did at its height.
I didn’t have much to unpack. A few days later, I spoke to Leslie about the photograph. The only problem was Leslie had lost contact with Grasshopper for weeks and the deadline for his album’s publicity loomed. This was before cell phones, so messages were left on answering machines after the beep. Leslie was ready to give-up and my opportunity was fading away. Luckily, Grasshopper returned.
We photographed for hours around SOHO and NOLITA. The area wasn’t as commercialized yet and interesting patches of backgrounds still existed. He brought a large grasshopper made of wire. I shot some of the portraits with a fisheye lens and color infrared film that made green and red jump off the film. I thought the experimental look matched his unique album. The B/W print underneath the color print was dipped in watered down bleach which wore away the midtones. The first prints dipped were eaten away.
I shot a lot of film. I always feared going back to a client with blank rolls of film. I dropped my color film off at the lab on Broadway and Houston. Then I held my breath until they handed me a contact sheet two days later. After I saw that there were images on the film, my worries shifted to finding a good photo on the contact sheets. Twenty-five years later, it’s the same experience.
I haven’t seen Grasshopper since he disappeared into a sea of people on Broadway. Weeks later, Mercury Rev’s album Deserter’s Songs became a critically acclaimed album. Every music magazine heaped well deserved praise on the band’s masterpiece.
“Since the bomb detonated above the city thestrong blast and flash of light hit our house which was located on a hill. All the glass from the windows was smashed. My father thought a regular bomb dropped on the roof because tiles had blown off, so he went onto the roof to get rid of it, although he quickly discovered it was not a regular bomb. As the day progressed my parents saw the mushroom cloud rise above Nagasaki.” -Noboru Tasaki, Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor
Noboru Tasaki was a year and 4 months old when the atomic bomb was over Nagasaki. His entire family was bombed. He was the second youngest of 8 siblings – his mother was pregnant with his younger brother. The family’s home was located in a town outside of the city called Yokoo, about 5.5km (3.5 miles) from the hypocenter.
This portrait is a part of my From Above project which featured portraits of atomic bomb and firebombing survivors from WWII. My limited edition book is available at https://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=I1040&i&i2&fbclid=IwAR1MsnTQNUo5AAD7OGWp_hM1LlvM8_zojBgUwd4s-Q7Hhs4HGFzIs33pZAI
From Above at Gallery ef. From Above, consists of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and WWII firebombing survivors from Dresden, Coventry, Tokyo, Wielun and Rotterdam.
“It worries me to think that the passage of months and years tends to cloud memories and that the grave reality of the atomic bombings will eventually fade into the background.” -Koichi Wada, Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor
I received the sad news that Koichi Wada passed away at the age of 94.
I photographed other hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) during my initial trips to Nagasaki who knew Wada-san but I didn’t have the opportunity to photograph him until 2016. Our paths never crossed until Ayumi-san asked him about being photographed.
At the time he had already lost many of his memories to dementia. But during our conversation there were brief moments where he would remember something about his experience on August 9th, 1945. Even though his memories were impeded by dementia I hope that his message to abolish nuclear weapons comes through in his portrait.
Today is the 4th anniversary of the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). On January 22nd (TPNW) it was enacted as international law. Before this treaty nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not banned by international law.
Mrs. Setsuko Thurlow fought her entire life to see this treaty become reality. I began photographing Mrs. Thurlow in 2011. From the moment we met her determination to fight for the abolition of nuclear weapons was evident. She was 13 years old when the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima.
“When I sit down to write down my recollections of that time, I have to brace myself to confront my memories of Hiroshima.
It is exceedingly painful to do this because I become overwhelmed by my memories of grotesque and massive destruction and death.” -Setsuko Thurlow
Everyday I think about the survivors I met in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Most have passed but their memory lives on when the treaty banning nuclear weapons arrives.
Mrs. Thurlow’s portrait is part of my project, From Above, which is a collection portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and fire bombing survivors from the Second World War. It will be exhibited at Gallery ef in Tokyo on September 1st-12th.
…Morning light through the forest, Westerbork Camp, Assen…..
Westerbork was used as a transit camp by the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands. Over 100,000 Jews and 245 Sinti and Roma were sent from Westerbork Camp to the death camps in Auschwitz and Sobibor. Only 5,000 returned after the war.
I received the sad news that Mrs. Emiko Okada passed away on April 9th. I photographed Mrs. Okada in Hiroshima during 2010. She experienced the atomic bomb when she was eight years old, at her home 2.8km from the hypocenter. She devoted her life traveling the world to promote peace and the importance of nuclear disarmament.
Although Mrs. Okada endured living a difficult life, she never spoke begrudgingly. She describes herself as a “mouthpiece” for the departed.
“My sister was 12 years old. She went out and never came back.” Mrs. Okada’s elder sister has been missing since August 6th, 1945. Mrs. Emiko’s daughter has struggled against an incurable disease that decreases the number of blood platelets, most likely caused by the radiation that Mrs. Okada was exposed to.
I haven’t met many other individuals so devoted to teaching young people about peace and reconciliation. Mrs. Okada was 84 years old.
