my name is david gutenfelder and i'm a
photographer
with national geographic magazine and
i'm here on assignment with mazda
in hiroshima japan
i'm a true believer in the power of
photography
i want people to see my photographs and
i want them to be transported
to that place
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i was very lucky to live in japan for
several years with my family
it really inspires me how vibrant life
is here and the serenity of some of the
traditional
culture
we started near the epicenter of the
atomic bomb and the dome
that's still partially standing a very
sad very somber
serious place but also the emblem of
the tenacity and the tough spirit of
people here in hiroshima
they call it the peace memorial park
rather than the war memorial
and i think that that was a moving
reminder of
how this place has moved forward
i've also visited shukian garden one of
the most
beautiful and oldest gardens in
hiroshima
in a japanese garden you're meant to
walk along a path that's been set for
you
so that every time you pause on a bridge
or
turn a corner it unfolds and opens up
another
visual narrative or another picture in
front of your eyes
i also visited miyajima it's a very
small
island just off the coast of hiroshima
it's one of the most beautiful
serene sacred places in all of japan and
really
in the world all the foods and smells
and
hundreds of these wild deer coming up to
say hello
when you go to a place like miyajima you
have to
share it with everyone
there's this concept in japanese culture
and in japanese language
called takomi which doesn't really exist
in my own language
takumi means master craftsman but it
goes beyond that
it's about putting all your creative
energy into your work
and that energy being transferred to
whomever experiences that work
so all along the way we were able to
meet people who embody this
concept of takumi from artists to
craftsmen
to manufacturing we met a takamori
artist
the seventh generation in his family to
be creating this kind of artwork
takamori are these three-dimensional
objects with layer
after layer of lacquer with very
intricate detail what stood out to me
is that he's taken this very
traditional art form and has completely
made something
unique that people had never seen before
then we met this katana sword smoker
he's been doing this since he began as
an apprentice as a teenager
there almost couldn't be something that
harkens back to the past in japan as
much as
making and yet he's still trying to
innovate and
move the craft forward and create
something new
and then we met a young calligraphy
artist 20 years old
what he told me is that when he sat down
painted a word when someone picked that
up and saw that word they wouldn't
just see the meaning of the word but
they would feel the emotions that he
felt when he sat down to paint it
and that's similar in photography i
don't want to take a photograph and just
show a literal
document of what i stood in front i want
people to see the photograph and feel
how i felt when i was standing in front
of their place
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mazda has been sort of the anchor and
pride for
rushing there they will tell you they're
not the biggest in the world
but they are a symbol of how people have
risen up and done things their own way
this idea of takumi that spirit
craftsmanship
the human hand touch the emotion of it
still alive and well
creating even a body panel of a car and
this is the kind of spirit that we found
all along the way
in this community i've been totally
moved by
the chance to come here to see what
we've been able to see and to meet some
of the people that we met
i hope that my pictures can convey the
emotion that i felt
but also will inspire other people to
walk with me and live the
experiences that i've had here in
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hiroshima
you