Masahiro Kawatei began photographing his hometown, between Kobe and Osaka, in 1991. Walking around with a Hasselblad, he captured the city for several years and held an exhibition in 1994. In 1995 the Great Hanshin Earthquake destroyed countless buildings and cost more than 5,000 lives; Kawatei, who survived, went straight back to photographing, and his focus shifted to the cherry blossoms that bloom each spring, not merely for their beauty but as a symbol of hope, resilience and new beginnings. Thirty years after the earthquake he photographed his hometown and its many cherry trees again, now with a digital Hasselblad. In the afterword he recalls being trapped beneath a wardrobe in the sudden, violent quake and thinking he would die.