Had anyone else heard about this?..we have just been shown an excellent documentary on British TV regarding the dropping of the A.bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 by the B.29 "Enola Gay".
During the course of the programme(re-actment) we saw a Japanese photographer with an Anniversary 5x4 Speed Graphic,who survived the blast who took the only 5 photographs known to be in existance of the aftermath of the attack.

These orginal b/w photographs were shown on the programme.Of course,if it had been a plate camera,and that during the earlier part of the day had been using his camera (so the records show)he had only 5 pictures left,this would make sense.

Has anyone else heard this story.The programme is based on records in the public domain.Had the Graphic been used perhaps as a little "artistic Licence" by the producers,or on the otherhand been a very GENUINE part of history making by this great camera.
If so,not only had the photographer lived to tell the tale,but the camera had as well..an Atom blast at that!

My only encounter with survival is when I got the Speed caught in a pair of sliding doors on a train-it was like coming up against a brick-the guard soon released the doors!.

Hi,
I just saw what sounds like the same documentary a couple of times here in the U.S. during the holidays. If a couple of the re-enacted segments included a Japanese girl and her lunch pail & a young boy out playing with a friend and riding a tricycle, then it is the same program. It was aired on the History Channel as part of a series called "Days That Shook the World."
There were a few good shows in the series, not just the Hiroshima segment. But as you say, Sid, it didn't really say whether the actual camera used was a Speed Graphic or not, but certainly one was used for re-enactment. If I see the show again, I will try to record it and get the photographer's name, then research from that. Or perhaps someone else might know something about it?

Yes,correct,same programme,except ours they have re-vamped it with an English speaking track...(in other words,non American dialect)

Did'nt the Japanese have their own version of the Graphic about this time?..Im sure I remember seeing something like this at auctions.

I suppose we really need an expert on Japanese field cameras of that period...BUT it would'nt answer our question,was he in REAL life,using a Graphic camera.

Certainly a very well constructed show,and an important part of history to the World.

Mark you,when the crew were having those pictures taken at the airfield-the press must have been using Graphics,although we never really saw much of that,only the REAL crew posing for them.

Do we know if the Japanes photographer in question owned a Graphic or not?
I saw the same programme 7 when I saw the camera I thought "wrong model".
You saw the camera closely in two shots, definitely a Anniversary. It looked like it may have had a black shutter assembly, possibly a Supermatic/Ektar combination.

So we know a Speed Graphic can survive being nuked. I wonder how long the photographer lived afterwards?

Well an anny with a black ektar would have been around at that time.

I haven't seen the program, so I'm a bit blind but the thought that comes to my mind is how the film survived.

Kodak takes great pains to get rid of background radiation in their paper boxes to keep film from fogging.

P3200 can pick up fog from atmospheric radiation.

Don't you dare put film in you suitcase on an airplane...it will be toast.

And yet here's this photographer with film that got a dose several magnitudes larger than any of this and the film survived? I'm not saying it couldn't have happened, just wondering HOW it happened.

I think a lot of questions need to be answered about this subject-but we might never get them.
The 5 photographs looked very grainy-not the usual 5x4 quality,but then if you have just had a bomb drop in your backyard,you might expect that-Im surprised photographer & camera did'nt end up as dust?

I understand this came from official records so truth can be stranger than fiction.
The Graphic must have been used for all manner of things,photographing the testing of the A & H bombs back in the 1950's,and what with World War II,Korea,Prohibition era,Hollywood,now we know why the Graphic had a great reputation.

Today's cameras might not take the punishment this workhorse did,Bombs,Bullets and the odd Custard pie (homemade),it carried on working through thick & thin.

A credit to the company & it's workforce that made it,a proud camera to own-and even today,it's still a showstopper!

According to the narrative with the programme the photographer's name was Yoshito Matsushiga. He was 2.3km from gnd zero at the time of the blast.

Thanks for that news 96...I would have prefered a little more distance between me than that...something like MARS along with my Graphics.

Anymore space shuttles coming up?

Here's his testimony (name spelled differently)
http://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/yoshito.html

Here are the photos
http://www.nvccom.co.jp/abomb/giseie.html

Unfortunately, none of the links I've found say what kind of camera he used.
j.e. simmons

I have been reading the book, "Hiroshima in America, Fifty Years of Denial" by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, G.P. Putman's Sons New York, 1995. A discussion of Yoshito Matsushige and the photographs he took are on pages 60, 61.