Faces of Fukushima, Tohoku

  • 2011 - The direct descendant of the feudal lords of Kessenuma, Mr. Ayukai would be the 17th lord of this area that is now a part of town that will never be rebuilt. Two vibrant communities wiped away.
  • 2014 - Mr. Ayukai stands where the debris once covered the earth. Now, it is a barren wasteland destined to one day be a park. No town will be built here again.
  • 2014 - They lost their two children in the tsunami and were 4 months pregnant.
  • 2014 - He ran for his life and survived the tsunami. Today he is helping launch a new tuna vessel for the damaged fleet.
  • 2014 - This was once a beautiful ocean view. Now the red mark on the pole indicates the height of the new tsunami wall.
  • 2014 - Mr. Abe is a teacher and former resident of Rikuzen Koizumi. He stands where the government proposes to build a giant seawall to prevent future tsunami damage.
  • 2014 - Radiation readings are too high for people in this park of Fukushima famous for horses.
  • 2014 - Irradiated soil is removed and replaced house by house.
  • 2011 - Young girls wait for transportation surrounded by the utter devastation at Kamaishi. Parents are concerned that their children wait for buses surrounded by aesbetos ladden rubble.
  • 2011 - A young survivor of Futaba, Fukushima. Her home is irradiated and soon she would leave this evacuation center and be separated from her parents because people don't want to take on Fukushima survivors as tenants.
  • 2011 - The youth community leader at an evacuation center in front of his family's temporary housing. The walls are so thin that normals level voices carry from one residence to another as if in the same room.
  • 2014 - The rebuilding is happening as quickly as possible. Here the remains of one road which has sunk below sea level sits below the new guard rail.
  • 2014 - Monkeys roam free in Fukushima; an area once known for its natural beauty.
  • Mr. Kato lost his home and his hotel became an emergency evacuation center. But, he considers himself lucky; his family all survived.

After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan, the world media quickly fixated on the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. However, Fukushima is just a small part of the devastation that wiped out communities for over a hundred miles north of Fukushima. We wanted to bring attention to these areas and the struggles they will face as they try to rebuild. This will be a multi-decade project as we revisit the locations and people we first met in June of 2011. Many of the pieces are intended to be large format panoramic images.