Locations: Hiroshima

Miyagi : Tokyo : Osaka : Hiroshima

Our town of Shobara is located in the northeastern part of Hiroshima prefecture. That means we are right next door to Okayama prefecture on the east, and Shimane and Tottori prefectures on the north and northeast. We’re surrounded by rice fields and the Chugoku mountains. The city of Shobara was built on a wide terrace of the Saijo river. These days everyone goes off to the city of Hiroshima to get jobs, so our city is gradually losing population. When we set out to photograph the city, however, we find a lot that we can be proud of.

On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima and 200,000 people lost their lives. Every year on August 6th, we go to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima to photograph the commemoration ceremony.

If you go out for lunch in Hiroshima, we recommend you have okonomiyaki. It’s a kind of pancake filled with vegetables and your choice of pork, squid, octopus, shrimp, and other ingredients.

Onomichi is an old port town filled with very old temples. It is backdrop for many Japanese works of fiction and film. We get up early to photograph the grannies who come to sell fish. Please, do come to Hiroshima, Shobara, and Onomichi. Your hosts will be the Shobara Kakuchi Senior High School Photography Club.

[school introduction]

Shobara Kakuchi Senior High School is a small high school with 380 students. Our photography club is small, with a total of only 8 members, but we are involved in a lot of different activities. We participate in the All-Japan High School Cultural Festival, All-Japan High School Photo Contest (Photography “Koshien”), and Yomiuri Photography Prize for High Schools, as well as TJF’s photo-message contests. At school, we photograph all the school events, take the class photos for the school album and photos for the student ID-cards, and even make a Photography Club calendar.

We exhibit our photographs more than five times year, at the school festival, of course, but also at local department store events, in city banks, parks, and elsewhere. We get lots of feedback from the local people who see these exhibits.

Shobara 1, 2 In the spring, the rice paddies are filled with water. The farmers hard at work planting rice shine out in the landscape.	Shobara 3 The city of Shobara	Shobara 4 The children are supposed to be playing in the swimming pools, but they love playing on the Saijo riverbank too.

	Shobara 5 The city is pretty quiet, but there are plenty of children kicking around a soccer ball in a temple lot and playing in the rice fields.		Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park 1, 2, 3 On Aug. 6, people come from all over the country and all over the world to pray for the repose of the souls of the people who died in the atomic bombings and for peace. It is important for us to have this chance to talk to the people who gather on this day, including survivors of the atomic bombing, and take their pictures.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park 4	Onomichi 1 A ropeway takes you up the mountain behind the city to the Senkoji temple. The water you can see in the distance isn‘t a river, but a narrow strip of the sea called Onomichi Channel.	Onomichi 2 The neighborhood around Senkoji was written about by famous writers like Shiga Naoya and Hayashi Fumiko, so many tourists visit here.	Onomichi 3 At the harbor, boats depart for the island on the other side of the channel, families come to relax and fish, and men while away the time gazing out at the sea.

Onomichi 4 In the narrow backstreets of the town, you’ll find the homes of the fishermen and of the grannies who sell fish on the streets.	Onomichi 5 There are lots of souvenir shops and stores specializing in seafood products as well as old-style coffee shops. This photo is a crepe shop popular with Onomichi’s high school students.	Onomichi 6 Onomichi ramen, for which the city is famous, is made with a broth made from small fish and flavored with soy sauce. Once you’ve had this ramen, you’ll never forget it.