Kamaishi

During my holiday in Japan, I visited Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture.

This little town was badly damaged due to the massive earthquake and Tsunami on 3.11 in 2011.

This town itself lost 1250 people (killed or missing).

I've been visiting this town every year since the Japan quake, mainly to document the recovery of the town but now I have so many friends who I love and care.

This time I visited Kamaishi with my university friends.

The mountain we drove through on our way to Kamaishi. Trees were just starting to change the color.


The ocean, which took so many lives that day, now remain calm and beautiful.

A fisherman who survived the Tsunami by getting on his fishing boat and went out to the ocean, before the tsunami reached the city.

 Luckily we were there to witness the most important festival of Kamaishi town.

On the day1 of festival weekend, the celebration took place on the boat.

They decorate their own fishing boat and celebrate the success of their catch.

They invited us to be on the boat and fed us! Lots of sake too.

 Beautiful flags were donated my fisherman's friends all across the world since 2011. All the old ones were sadly swept away by Tsunami.

After the boat trip, they then invited us to their house and fed us again!....with fresh Sashimi.

Tiger dances, kids dancers and dragon dancers visited almost every houses to entertain the residents.

Next day we went to see a massive parade. I don't know how many people were there but It was a joint one with other towns in Iwate Prefecture.

The festival had full of positive energy......It seemed so unbelievable to think the horrible thing happened to them only 3 years ago.

I could see the recovery of the town, but most of them live in a tiny temporary houses.

It's so hard to see when their life can get back to what it used to be, and we don't now how safe it is to be living in the area so close to Fukushima (nuclear power plant).....but it is true that media attention is drifting away from this issue.

I'm so moved by seeing so many smiles during my stay in Kamaishi this time. We were welcomed by lovely people, and they told us to come back again soon.

They are my extended family.

Arohanui

Northern Lights

It has been a busy couple of months since the biggining of this year.

Things were expected to slow down during the summer. However luckily I managed to work all summer.....got to the point where I didn't know how to relax anymore. It wasn't a bad thing, but I wanted to free myself from the stress I was having at that time...... so I decided to have a long holiday last month.

I first flew to my home country, Japan.

I try to go back there every winter, but I never went back in Autumn since I left 10 years ago...

I was very excited. I LOVE Japanese Autumn!



I saw a beautiful Northern Light on my way to Japan......from the aircraft window.

I don't know how rare it is to catch this kind of view while flying...but it was truly stunning and it took my breath away!

I happened to have my 5D MarkIII on my knee (as you do) so I rushed to get a photo......and realized I didn't have to rush at all. The bright green sky entertained me for the whole 8 hours.


As you can see (the slight blur and the noise) I had some trouble taking these shots.  Obviously had to have a slow shutter speed on a shaky aircraft (It was a bumpy ride) as well as having a difficulty of focusing in the dark. Reflection on the window was tricky, too (person next to me had an entertainment screen turned on and my camera kept focusing on that).

As you can tell I had a sleepless flight, but it was so worth it.

It was just right outside of my window. Made me realized that we weren't just having an amazing view of Northern Light, we were actually flying through it.

These kind of miracle really fulfills happiness in my life.



It was definitely the best plane ride I ever had.

Hello!

Hi everyone,

My name is Hannah Lemon.


I decided to create this blog to write about myself and about my work life in London.


I will tell you about my pre-London life to start with.

Let me take you back to....25 years ago.

I was born in Osaka, Japan. (Konnichiwa!)

I have English father and Japanese mother.

I left my home country when I was 15 to do high school and university in New Zealand.

I focused on studying Photography and Fine Arts at high school, then I majored Film and Media Communications for my BA degree.

After my BA, I wanted to study more about the business side of media (mainly photography). Then I flew to England and studied MA freelance photography course.



I am now based in London, UK.

I LOVE  my work life in such an exciting city full of professionals from around the world....

As well as doing my own photography work here, I work as a freelancer in media field.......sometime as a producer, coordinator, production assistant, production attend/runner, photography assistantetc etc....

I work as an interpreter for Japanese clients too. ( I speak Japanese and English fluently)




If you need someone like me in media/production related work, please contact me on

lemohana@gol.com

You can view my photography work on Hannah Lemon Photography




Hope you're enjoy my up-coming posts!