Hiroshima Photo Walk | National Geographic

My name is David Gutenfelder, and I'm a photographer with National Geographic magazine. 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 Takumi, 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 maker. 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.

Then we met a young calligraphy artist, 20 years old. What he told me is that when he sat down and 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. 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 of. 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 of craftsmanship, the human hand touch, the emotion of it is still alive and well, creating even a body panel of a car. 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 Hiroshima.

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