Twisted wreckage thrown against the pastoral countryside, surreal scenes of the elements of everyday horribly juxtaposed, a world exploded yet eerily calm in its chaos. The photos are at once deeply disturbing and uncomfortably captivating. Rich colors, uncanny detail and stunning skies brought out by high dynamic range imaging techniques draw the eye in ever further. These are the work of American Toby Marshall, some 24 photos that created a stir while on display recently at the OAG House (German Culture Center) in Tokyo.
Marshall, a cameraman and video editor in Tokyo with the German television network ZDF for the past 17 years, shot the scenes during his team's innumerable forays into the Tohoku disaster zone following the Great East Japan Earthquake. The photos only found their way out of Marshall's computer and into the public eye at the urging of a colleague, who saw them and said: "Toby, these are really strong. You should do something with these."
The 60-year-old Marshall, who considers himself foremost a photographer, recognizes how "privileged" he was to have been able to experience at painful proximity the aftermath of disaster. "Everywhere I looked there was something that hit me inside . . . and I can't tell you how many times I cried behind the camera trying to hide my eyes. I couldn't even see anymore." But he could see something "quieter, almost like a meditation, like, 'Here it is, what does it mean to you?' " It was, among others, the "feeling of paradox" Marshall hoped to convey to others. "These pictures are only asking for a look and an openness . . . an awareness of the depth of the powers of the world in which we live in." The photos are next headed to Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, where they will be displayed in the local municipal office. With luck, they will go worldwide.