The Sun on the Day the War Ended, Niigata
敗戦の日の太陽、新潟
- Birth Year
- 1915
- Death Year
- 1999
- Date
- 1945 (printed in 1991)
- Technique, Material, Format
- gelatin silver print
- Dimension
- 29.9 x 19.9 cm
- Category
- Photograph or Moving Image by JapanesePhotographer/Artist
- Inventory Number
- 91-PHJ-066
On August 15, 1945, Japan’s defeat in World War II was announced to the public through a radio broadcast by Emperor Showa (Hirohito). Hamaya Hiroshi, who was in Niigata to photograph a local event on the day, ran outside, pointed his camera to the sky and took a photograph of the sun in a cloudless midsummer sky. Thirty years later, he tried to write about that day: “The war has ended. Japan has suffered a crushing defeat at the cost of unprecedented sacrifice and misery. My emotions I was feeling at that time are hard to describe clearly in words.” The photo shows only the sun’s dazzling light, with the sky printed in black. However, if you cast your mind to the circumstances of that day, and the thoughts of the photographer, your perspective changes. In a sense, this is one photo marks the beginning of Japan’s post-war photography.
(OSAWA Sayoko)