Yoshito Matsushige

was a Japanese photojournalist who survived the dropping of the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and took five photographs on the day of the bombing in Hiroshima, the only photographs taken that day within Hiroshima that are known.

Human Shadow Etched in Stone (photographed by Yoshito Matsushige in ca. December, 1946) Matsushige was born in Kure, Hiroshima in 1913. He took a job at a newspaper after finishing school and in 1943 entered the photography section of the newspaper Chugoku Shimbun. The first two frames are of people who escaped serious injury next to Miyuki bridge; the second of these is taken closer up and shows them having cooking oil applied to their burns. A third shows a policeman, his head bandaged, issuing certificates to civilians. The last pair are taken close to home: one of the damage to his family's barbershop, and another out of his window.

Matsushige was unable to develop the film for twenty days, and even then had to do so at night and in the open, rinsing it in a stream. The negatives had severely deteriorated by the 1970s, requiring intensive restoration work.

Selected photos