This Day of Change

132 photographers from around the world were called to visually document January 20th, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States. The finest photographs taken on this day were then compiled into this deluxe book and published as part of the Kodansha Ltd. Centennial Project. On the day the first African American became the president of the United States, many people were more hopeful than they had ever been. On that day, some photographers were in Washington and documented the inauguration ceremony itself, while others photographed events and people in different parts of the Earth: places where hope might be needed most. Each photographer chose his or her own subject and captured powerful images the world has yet to see.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his work on famine in Ethiopia, ANTHONY SUAU also won the World Press Photo of the Year in 1987 for a photo taken during a demonstration in South Korea, and again in 2008 for his photo of an officer in Ohio inspecting an abandoned house following mortgage foreclosure. He also received the Robert Capa Gold medal in 1995 for his photos from Chechnya. He has worked for Time magazine and has published several books, including Beyond the Fall, a 10-year photography project portraying the transition of the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Berlin wall.

MARTIN PARR won the Arts Council of Great Britain Photography Award for three consecutive years in the 1970s and is well-known throughout Europe for his photographic works that take a critical look at modern society. His solo exhibition was held at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2007.

LU GUANG is one of the most talented photographers in China. He has received various prizes, and his work has been exhibited frequently in the past 20 years. He is the Deputy Director of the Society of Photography in Zhejian and was awarded the first prize in Contemporary issue-stories of the World Press Photo in 2004.

KOSUKE OKAHARA has been photographing mainly in Africa, Colombia and Japan. Currently he lives in Paris with the support of the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists funded by the Agency of Cultural Affairs. He was awarded a grand prize in the 6th Ueno Hikoma Photography Award and holds various other distinctions.

Currently a professor of photojournalism at the University of Texas at Austin, ELI REED photographed the effects of poverty on Americas children for the 1988 film documentary, Poorest in the Land of Plenty.