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I went to the Tsutomu Mizukami Exhibition, which is now being held in Fukui Prefectural Library. Tsutomu Mizukami is a Fukui-born novelist. (1919-2004)

There was a big panel of Mizukami's photo that shows him standing in a coat in the snow. He looked more stylish than ordinary actors. His books were displayed all over on a wall, which was overwhelming. Each book cover was tasteful. Among them, I was particularly impressed with one of "Gobancho Yugiriro", which is the title was lettered big in pale red on a white background simply.

Also, his handwritten manuscripts were exhibited. His handwriting looked soft and tender, which showed Mizukami's gentle personality. There were many red-pencil parts, of course, and I found how hard it was to finish final manuscripts.

I was touched by one sentence from an essay by him: "Looking back my childhood, I think of my poor parents who didn't talk any lessons. But now I realize that they left many better words than any other books to me."

The exhibition is admission-free, includes a precious film and sound of lectures, so you can see a compilation of Mizukami's work. It was a meaningful space and I wanted to stay there a whole day. (H.S)

I saw the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC photo exhibition -The Truth of Earth- held at Fukui City Museum.

"National Geographic" is known for documentary photography and wildlife photography. Mitsuaki Iwago was the only Japanese whose photographs were used on the cover twice.

Mitsuaki Iwago and the two "National Geographic" magazines with his photographs on the cover.（From the official website of National Geographic Japan）

The photograph of lions of the flyer above was also taken by Iwago. The photo titled "Battle between life and death", which captures a male lion challenged another male one in the group to a fight. After the intense fighting, the challenger's head was crunched down. The shooting was done under imminently dangerous situation in which Iwago himself might have gotten attacked by the lions.

You can watch the videos for photography and interviews with the photographers for several works among many other photographs. Paul Nicklen's photograph of a leopard seal underwater was very especially impressive. It seemed that the leopard seal had been mistaken him for its company which was not good at hunting and it carried him a penguin that it hunted again and again. Nicklen said "Probably the leopard seal thought of me as a starving company. I am completely happy that I had such experience as a photographer."

Of course, I was overwhelmed with photographs that were taken for photographers' lives. However, I also was deeply touched by wildlife photography. I feel that I was once again reminded that the earth is not only for the human beings. (H.S)