Takato Jinno was 7 years old when he first picked up a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera and took photos of his parents' hometowns. He shot many photos of Hokkaido's expansive natural scenery and the cherry blossoms in Tokyo before he died aged 9.
An exhibition featuring a collection of his photos is being held at a community space in Inagi, Tokyo, through March 19.
In 1991, Inagi formed a sister town relationship with Memanbetsu, which is now part of the town of Ozora. Takato's parents, Satomi, 45, and Takashi, 49, met through an exchange program for young people that was run by the municipalities.
Satomi flew to Sapporo to cheer on Takashi, a farmer in the Hokkaido town who was performing at a festival as a member of Yosakoi Soran dance team. They got married in 2003, and Takato was born in August 2006, shortly after the town was renamed Ozora after a municipal merger. Takato was the first child to be born among several couples who met and got married through the sister-town program.
According to his parents, Takato had shown an interest in cameras since he was 2. On his seventh birthday, he begged his parents for a camera. "I don't want a game console or a toy. I want a real SLR camera," he said.
They bought him a Pentax K-30 digital SLR camera, which his mother told him was three years' worth of gifts.
Once he got his hands on the camera, the shy Takato instantly became more outgoing, actively searching for his favorite subjects, including butterflies, steam trains with their billowing smoke, and the magnificent nature of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Shiretoko Peninsula. Takato would visit his mother's hometown of Inagi twice a year. He ended up taking more than 8,000 photos.
In 2015, when he was in the third grade, Takato won the grand prize in his first photo contest in the junior category (for high school students and younger).
He developed an incurable blood disease soon after and his short life ended on Feb. 12, 2016. As he lay in a coma, his parents wanted to do something for him, so they continued to talk to him, telling him that they would publish a book of his photos.
In 2017, his parents selected 64 photos from his collection and published "Boku no Takaramono" (My treasures). The book has attracted a lot of attention in Ozora and Inagi and has been made into an e-book.
The exhibition in Tokyo was organized by Yukio Ogawa, secretary general of the Inagi sister and friendship city exchange association.
"We wanted the people of Inagi to know about Takato," said Ogawa, 62.
The exhibition features about 40 photographs, including pictures of Takato in Inagi that were provided by his parents.
"It still makes me cry sometimes, thinking about him battling the disease," his mother said. "I'm grateful for the opportunity of letting people know that there was a boy named Takato Jinno who loved taking photos."
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