(b Tokyo, 3 Dec 1940). Japanese photographer. He studied photography at Nihon University, Tokyo, also working at this time as a freelance photographer for the Light Publicity Company (1961-3). He made his real d?but as a photographer with his one-man shows Tanjo ('Birth') at the Nikon Salon in 1968 and Nudes, held at the Matsuzakaya Department Store, Tokyo, (1970), a series of nude portraits set against large-scale backgrounds of nature. After leaving Light Publicity in 1968, he began a successful career photographing subjects which ranged from portraits of pop stars to travel photographs of the Silk Road, capturing them with a fine expressive technique. His unique character and appearance made him a mass media star and he popularized the phrase gekisha ('agitated shot'). His photographs of body tattoos (see 1979 exh. cat., pp. 117-21) combine an artistic eye with documentary photography, while recording particularly Japanese subject-matter.
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