I can't imagine looking out into where my town once stood. My home, my neighborhood, my friends houses, my favorite shops; all gone. The places where I lived my childhood taken from me. I don't know what this young boy was thinking as he looked out - except I know he had trouble identifying where certain landmarks were.

This may also be known as Rikuzenkoizumi - I will have to check. Where we stand is in the parking lot of a school - now evacuation area - for this town. There is a river but the water closer to me was once land (and houses) I believe. The triangular structure near the left boundary of the top image is the roof of a house that floated on top of the railway bridge.

The challenge moving forward is who will decide how rebuilding will occur? When will it start? Everyone has an opinion but the weakest voice is also the most important. The people who lived here have been dispersed from their home likes baby spiders in the wind. They are scattered throughout the area and the country. So, their voice is not unified. In their absence decisions are being made by various government bureaucracies. But, would you want the national government or even the state government to dictate your neighborhood layout?

Koizumi, amongst other things, was once known for its surfing. But, the topology was changed and surfing, post tsunami, is no longer possible.

more to come. (I'm surrounded by floating baby spiders this evening - thus the analogy).

Suffice to say Stacey and Scott are awesomtastic; so I'm psyched to shoot their wedding. We rocked out in the woods, with a classic car, and other cool and groovy stuff. I went to college with Scott and so it's been just plain fun to see where we ended up.

Their dog (Otis? I'm blanking... I feel bad about it too) does not like being in the back of the car. Or at least he doesn't like getting into the car. Once he's in the car he's cool. But it takes some voodoo and Obiwan like magic to convince him to get near the vehicle when he wants to play. I'm pretty sure if Otis and I didn't get along I wouldn't be shooting the wedding. But, he approves of me. So, I got the in.

Lots more pics. Just don't want to jump the gun on Stacey. She has cool ideas in motion.

I visited Kamaishi with Takahashi sensei. He taught in Kamaishi many years ago and he had heard that one of his former students had been killed in the tsunami. This was to be my introduction to the tsunami affected area.

I want to reitterate that these images were taken this June - 3 months after the tsunami. Yet, notice the personal items that lay in the street and around the houses. The violin was sitting in a closed case. I opened it to see this sad reminder that this house was occupied by a family not unlike my own when I was growing up.

Going down the road it was not immediately obvious how badly the area had been hit. But, as we pulled over and I looked more closely at the houses, the damage become apparent. It was an odd feeling walking through a neighborhood that had been abandoned but was largely still standing.

What I could not know was that this was to be the least damaged area I would visit. Despite that; all of these houses are a total loss. Sadly, I came to this neighborhood knowing that lives had been lost. But, unlike many areas I was with someone who had once lived here and knew many of the names on the houses as we passed.

Note; as I move forward I will have more images from Japan and more images from our daily work. This is going to be a bit challenging for me and I mean no disrespect to the people who I will be showcasing in Japan next to happy images from the states. It is the nature of our work and the reality of the situation. As life moves on here, life in Northeastern Japan has been tragically turned for the worse. It is not over.

So, we started with one set of ideas and landed in another. No surprise. When Marguerite contacted me she said she was tired of the love fest that is modern wedding photography. She wanted different. That's good. I can do different. I am different. They are different. Love at first sight.

I'm having a heck of a hard time choosing just a few images to show.

These were shot at the High School Brendan works at. No school property was damaged. A few parents and teachers were confused maybe... that's about it.