The focus of Mayumi Suzuki’s life shifted forever on March 11, 2011. A photographer from Onagawa, a small town on Japan's northeast coast, she was in Tokyo when the tsunami struck. Her parents were home when the tsunami struck. They disappeared that day. The town was shattered; the family home and the photo studio her grandfather started and her father maintained were left mud-filled shells.
The photo book that she has created over the last year, The Restoration Will, explores her sense of loss and sorrow that followed the disaster. The book includes photographs recovered from her father’s studio and dark double exposures she took using a 4x5 camera and a muddy and damaged lens that she found in the rubble of her father's studio.
The lens keeps her connected to her father. “I believe my father would be proud of my work. He would be proud of me,” she said.
Photos and text by Parker Seibold