(b Tokyo, 25 May 1940). Japanese photographer. He graduated from the engineering department of Chiba University in 1963 and in the same year received the Taiyo prize for Satchin (Tokyo, 1964), a photographic series whose title was the pet name of a little girl. In 1971, he published the privately printed photographic collection Senchimentaru na tabi ('Sentimental journey'; Tokyo, 1971) in which his own private life, in particular his wedding and honeymoon, was displayed in diary form. At first glance they seem to be naive records but in fact are staged. He also gave a performance in 1972 called the Super-Photo concert in which these photographs were reproduced on a photocopier, bound and sent, as a collection, by post. He later became very popular through photographs that skilfully anticipated public demand, accompanied by essays written in a risqu? style. A prolific worker, he published many collections of essays and photographs, including Otoko to onna no aida ni wa shashinki ga aru ('There is a camera between man and woman'; Tokyo, 1977), Waga'ai Yoko ('Yoko, my love'; Tokyo, 1978), Shashin shosetsu ('Photograph novel'; Tokyo, 1981), Tokyo ereji ('Tokyo elegy'; Tokyo, 1981), Shojo sekai ('World of girls'; Tokyo, 1984) and Tokyo wa aki ('Autumn in Tokyo'; Tokyo, 1984). Beneath his boisterous photographs runs an undercurrent of cool detachment regarding human life and death.
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