This St. Petersburg Times (http://www.sptimes.com) story has been sent to you from [log in to unmask]



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/01/10/Floridian/World_War_II_s_photo_.shtml

World War II's photo finish
By JEANNE MALMGREN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 10, 2002


   A photo exhibit captures the great and the small of the Allied occupation of Japan at the end of World War II, from Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito to a father-son fishing expedition.   TAMPA -- Nicholas Orzio was just 18 years old, newly enlisted in the U.S. Army and stationed in Japan at the close of World War II, when he got the order of a lifetime.

   Here's a jeep, here's a camera. Go out and photograph the occupation of Japan. You have two years.

   Orzio, a scrappy, confident kid from White Plains, N.Y., who bought his first camera at age 11 and ran around shooting car wrecks, didn't have to be told twice. He grabbed the Speed Graphic, jumped in the military vehicle and took off.

   As Japan struggled to recover from the devastation of war under the supervision of the Allies, Orzio freely wandered the country and snapped whatever interested him. His subjects were legendary: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese warlord Hideki Tojo. But he also shot the everyday: Tokyo residents milling around a park on a Sunday afternoon, a father taking his son fishing, a pair of wrinkled old women in formal robes.

   Fifty-four years later, some of the results of Orzio's labor are on display in Tampa: 42 black-and-white photos hanging on the walls of a one-room storefront in an upscale shopping center.

   The grouping, called "War and Peace, World War II" is the third exhibit at the Tampa Gallery of Photographic Arts, a nonprofit museum that opened last April. Orzio's work has been on display since early December. Charles Levin, one of the museum's organizers, said the exhibit wasn't necessarily timed to reflect Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan, but it certainly is apropos.

   "We didn't want to show prisoners and (dead) bodies," said Levin. "We consciously selected more positive images. This is a much more sensitive, personal view of war."

   On one wall are photographs of Japanese people going about their daily lives in the difficult post-war years. Another wall shows images of the international tribunal, lasting more than two years, during which many Japanese military officers were tried for war crimes. A third wall again shows everyday people, but amid poverty and the rubble left by atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

   Although he had requested the signal corps when he enlisted, Orzio wound up in the infantry -- miserable. In his spare time, he volunteered to take photos around base for the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes. He had no formal experience as a photographer, but his freelance work had appeared on the front page of the New York Daily News when he was only 15.

 One day, Orzio was sent to take a picture of MacArthur on the general's birthday. He snapped him emerging from base headquarters, tall, lean and ramrod straight, flanked by several officers as he came down a short flight of stairs.

   "It's a remarkable image," said Levin. "It captures and says something to you about the man. There's something regal about him."

   The next day Orzio's commanding officer called him in and gave him the good news: He was being made a full-time military photographer. To this day, Orzio is sure it was because MacArthur himself was pleased with the photo taken of him.

   Another image in the show, Orzio's personal favorite, shows Tojo in his cell minutes after being sentenced to death at the tribunal. It's the last portrait of him before he was hanged two weeks later. Orzio shot it on his own 20th birthday.

   In the photo, taken through a mesh grill enclosing the prisoner, Tojo looks up as he breaks a rice cookie in two. Orzio finds irony in the simple gesture, so like the symbolic breaking of bread. He titled the photograph Peace -- Hideki Tojo.

   Emperor Hirohito usually was stonefaced but once, when he recognized Orzio crouching beside a foot parade he was in, aiming a camera at him, the emperor doffed his top hat and grinned broadly. The resulting photo, The Emperor's Hat, is one of the few images ever taken of the Japanese leader in high spirits.

   The whole experience was unforgettable, Orzio said.

   "I could do what I wanted, go where I wanted. I did (photo) essays on Japanese fishing, on the silk industry. I followed Helen Keller for two weeks while she toured Japan." (Two images of Keller are in the Tampa show.)

   Often, Orzio arrived in mountain villages where no Westerner had been seen before.

   "The mayor would meet me in coattails and a top hat. He'd drive up in a 1929 Packard."

   The Japanese were changed by the occupation, Orzio recalled.

   "One day they're bitter enemies. Then all of a sudden, with the signing of a peace treaty, they became almost like pets. Friendly, subservient, willing to help."

   Today Orzio is 73. He and his wife, Anne, retired to Melbourne seven years ago. They have three children and six grandkids. Surprisingly, Orzio spent only a few of his working years as a professional photographer. He ran a color processing lab, had a radio show and worked in the food and construction businesses.

   Most of Orzio's photographs of occupied Japan are mildewing in Army files, he assumes. Maybe they were destroyed years ago. He once found some in the National Archive on a trip to Washington, D.C.

   Orzio kept many others. For years he stored them in his basement or garage. Didn't look at them. Eventually one of his sons got curious and started going through the boxes of oversize negatives. History was reawakened.

   In 1998 the International Photography Hall of Fame inducted Orzio as a member. His World War II photos were assembled into a traveling exhibit called "Beginnings: Images of Occupied Japan."

   The Tampa display overlaps with that exhibit, but also includes images not previously shown. They were selected by Levin and Orzio when they spent most of a day huddled at Orzio's kitchen table several months ago.

   Nowadays, Orzio makes photographs only when he feels like it. His subjects: flowers, nudes and portraits. A far cry from the devastation and fear of war.

   But once again, just as in World War II, American flags are flying everywhere. While the country battles enemies on other continents, everyone at home is a patriot.

   Orzio remembers a larger-than-life patriot from 50 years ago, the general who often filled his viewfinder.

   "MacArthur was the greatest American who ever lived," he said. "I don't think this country has ever seen a more loyal American."



If you go



   "War and Peace, World War II," an exhibit of Nicholas Orzio's photographs of occupied Japan in 1948-1949, is on display through Jan. 27 at Tampa Gallery of Photographic Arts, 746 S Village Circle (upstairs at Old Hyde Park Village), Tampa. Hours are 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Call (813) 251-1800 or visit www.tgpa.org.

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).