About 'HIROSHIMA'
Ask someone about Hiroshima, and they will tell you one of two things. First, it's a city in Japan. And second, it's where the Americans dropped the atomic bomb. Google 'Hiroshima' and you would get roughly the same two things. Hiroshima (and to a lesser extent Nagasaki) have become the symbol of the atomic age. And if you look, the only images to come out of Hiroshima have been images of the immediate post-bombing landscape, or if it is of a more modern vintage, pictures of the Genbaku Dome (the Atomic Bomb Dome, the only remaining structure in the city that survived the blast) or the Peace Memorial Park. Rarely do we see any more.
Hiroshima was my home from March 2006 to March 2008. I had a small apartment in Funairi Saiwai-cho, which is only a few kilometres outside the city centre. Everyday I would cycle to work, along one of the five major rivers, through the Peace Park and onto Hon-Dori, the city’s main shopping street. Every night I would cycle home, and on the weekends I would meet friends and drink in Nagarekawa, an area famous for its office buildings full of tiny bars, which is also famous for being controlled by the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. It was once declared by the Japanese government as being one of the 20 most dangerous spots in Japan. In reality the most dangerous thing in Nagarekawa is stumbling drunk into the hundreds of passing taxis looking for a fare.
Between the cycling and the drinking I fell in love with the city.
This is a project I had been itching to do for some time, and I had the opportunity to do it when I went back to Hiroshima for two weeks in the June of 2009. I wanted to show the world images of a vibrant, exciting city, and show the city as something other than having been a victim. But when I started sorting and editing the images I had taken I realised that I had not photographed the city so much as my love affair with the city. These images are of the things I love about the city, the things that make me laugh, the things that make me wonder... all the things that make me miss Hiroshima day after day.