JAPANESE photographer Akihiko Okamura was hailed as the successor to the famous war photographer Robert Capa for his coverage of the Vietnam War which earned him a ban from the US-backed Saigon regime. He was also the first Japanese journalist to cover the Biafra War.
In 1968 he moved to Ireland with his wife and children and was living in Dublin when the civil rights movement began in the North. He photographed the 5 October march in Duke Street, Derry, and also visited Belfast after the pogroms. He covered the North until at least 1977.
Okamura died in 1985 and his archive is housed in a museum in Tokyo.
APPEAL: Two women leave their possessions on a table in the alley
His Berlin-based daughter, Kusi, who grew up in Dublin, contacted Danny Morrison about a Photo Museum Ireland exhibition of her father’s archive to be held in 2024, and was hoping to be able to identify the people in some of his photographs in Belfast. She would also like to know whatever happened to the people after the photos were taken.
Here are two of the photographs. It is believed that the first one was taken in Bombay Street in August 1969 but the circumstances aren’t clear. The other photograph, at the corner of Alma Street and Falls Road, may have been taken in 1969 or in 1970 at the time of the July Curfew.
If you know the people in the photograph or can be of any assistance please contact danny@dannymorrison.com.
