FUKUOKA--A new photo book contains pictures of women in beautiful poses, including some featuring half-nude models. But the purpose of the images is not to titillate. Instead, the photographer wants to send a message about the dangers of nuclear power plants.
FUKUOKA--A new photo book contains pictures of women in beautiful poses, including some featuring half-nude models. But the purpose of the images is not to titillate. Instead, the photographer wants to send a message about the dangers of nuclear power plants.The subjects in Nonoko Kameyama’s new book “Hyakunin no Hahatachi” (One-hundred mothers) are mainly mothers in their 20s through 40s who left the Tohoku region after last year’s accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.Kameyama said she wanted to show the beauty of motherhood and the resilience of moms and their children. Some of the photos are of mothers breast-feeding their infants.“I wanted to express something like women’s beauty and determination,” she said.Kameyama, 36, is the mother of twin boys, who were born six months before the Fukushima nuclear crisis began on March 11, 2011.Then a Tokyo-based advertising and magazine photographer, Kameyama feared for her sons’ health after learning that radioactive materials from the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan had been detected in the nation’s capital.In August last year, Kameyama, her 36-year-old husband and the twin boys moved to Fukuoka’s Chuo Ward in western Japan.Her photo project actually began when she was in Tokyo after she thought about how she could help abolish nuclear plants in Japan. She decided to do what she knew best.She started taking pictures of mothers who shared her anti-nuclear thoughts and posted them on her blog.An increasing number of women asked Kameyama to take their photos, prompting her to travel from Akita in northern Japan to the southern island of Okinawa at her own expense.“(Mothers) want to protect their children who have endless energy,” Kameyama said. “I was driven by their instincts as a mother.”She continued this project while her husband worked at a motorcycle shop in Fukuoka.Kameyama said she developed a bond with her prospective subjects, many of whom were initially reluctant to express their views about nuclear power.Although there were differences of opinion about the dangers of the Fukushima radiation and food contamination, they all agreed that nuclear power plants are dangerous.Megumi Abe, 33, had her photo taken with her three children climbing a tree.Abe, a native of Fukushima, moved to Ukiha in Fukuoka Prefecture and other places before she settled down in Akita.“I wanted people to know the pain I felt by being pressed to evacuate,” Abe said. “I agreed with the idea of advocating a nuclear-free society from the thoughts of a gentle mother.”Abe said she was moved to tears looking at the photos of other mothers in the book.“I want to spread the idea of denuclearization through mothers’ warmth,” Kameyama said.Pictures from “Hyakunin no Hahatachi” are on display at Maruzen bookstore’s Hakata branch in Fukuoka.