Three Views of Manzanar: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake

[Pieter]

I did not catch this the first time it aired, so it may be old news.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/e...-toyo-miyatake

[FrancisF]

Thank you so much for sharing. I was only aware of Ansel Adams' work. This is an important documentary to the larger context - and the power of photgraphy to tell a story.

[Robert Bowring]

Fantastic! Thank you.

[biedron]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting the link.

[Natenaaron]

That was a good watch. Thanks.

[Drew Wiley]

I've seen more extended documentaries of all the above. The most interesting is of course about the man inside, and how there was an unspoken agreement between him and a sympathetic camp director to do photographic work that was officially forbidden, and even obtain necessary supplies. When I was young, we'd drive down from the mountains to help a Japanese family harvest their orchard crops after starting up anew on a small plot, having lost everything their hard work had attained previously due to internment. They eventually became quite successful operation again. But it left me convinced that the WWII internment was largely a ruse by greedy well-connected agribusiness interests to seize sizable orchards for themselves for next to nothing. It's been about five years since I've stopped at the Manzanar site. It's a kinda bleak spot. It wouldn't be that way if LA hadn't stolen most of the water several decades earlier, a story documented by Mary Austin in a little town of Big Pine nearby, where her own house has been preserved for historic reasons. My mother's uncle's little Victorian church is still there too. Behind Manzanar there's an interesting lower ridge of an unnamed peak made famous in a shot of AA, which he misidentified as Mt Willamson. It's visible several times as the flick starts. The real Mt Williamson is visible from there, but fully seven miles to the north, and dramatically bigger and higher, at least 2,500 ft higher than the prominence AA photographed. I don't want to say too much, except to quote the old axiom, You learn nothing from history except that you learned nothing from history; it keeps repeating itself.

[Willie]

An Uncle who shoots LF used to photograph the Manzanar reunions for the committee when he lived in the area as well as for the Newspaper in Bishop. A lot of work around the area as it was local for him at that time.

The various individual stories of those who would come back were interesting as well as frustrating to hear.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I certainly like the fact the improvised camera still exits and is even working. It's a wonder the Smithsonian hasn't acquired it; but it's in good hands as is.

[Ulophot]

Thank you for posting. It's a moving documentary.

[Pat Kearns]

That link on the documentary brought back some long ago memories. In 1983, I was hired as the controller for a large local seafood processing company that was a subsidiary of a seafood processing company in Los Angeles. The owners were a Japanese family that had started the company before the war. They were interned in one of the relocation camps and lost everything they owned at the time of internment. After release, the family returned to Los Angeles and restarted their business which grew to a $500 million corporation. They were very loyal to the other Japanese that returned to Los Angeles. They also helped relatives that left Japan to live in the US after the war. One of those that left Japan was a man named Mas. He came and worked with me for about 3 years in the early 90's. Mas was very personable and we became good friends. Before returning back to Los Angeles we had lunch together and Mas told me about his life as a child growing up in Hiroshima and where he was when the bomb went off. I was speechless after he described it and the aftermath. I could tell it was something Mas didn't speak much about and was surprised he told me about it. The owners and Mas have long passed away and I am fortunate to have known and worked with them.