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"I thought photography offered me a way to be active in the world of nature."
I was a primary school student when I first laid my hands on a camera. We lived in Hokkaido, very close to the Sea of Okhotsk, and I often took photos of sunsets over the ocean. I also frequently went just outside town to areas of pristine nature on what I considered to be "expeditions," looking for places where people had never been before.
When I entered junior high school, I asked my parents to buy me a tent, a pair of binoculars, and a camera. I thought they were all I needed to go wherever I liked, camping out, observing wild birds and landscapes, and taking photos. For me, these three items were like the Three Sacred Treasures. It's probably because I grew up in the countryside of Hokkaido that I still love wide-open spaces.
After majoring in anthropology at a university in the United States, I decided to pursue my postgraduate studies in Kenya, in part to fulfill my childhood longing for nature on a grand scale. While at graduate school, I joined an exploration club that gave me many opportunities to visit remote areas of the country.
It was during this period that I started taking more and more photos. One day, while taking a shot of a herd of zebras moving towards a water hole at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, one zebra noticed me hiding in a bush and we made eye-to-eye contact. With no one else around, I felt as though I'd come into direct touch with the world of wildlife. It was a precious moment I'll always remember.
It was thanks to cameras that I had that experience. Although I was only an amateur photographer at the time, I strongly felt that photography offered me a way to play an active role in the world of nature. It was then that I decided to study photography seriously. At that point, I had already been in Kenya for five years.
So I returned to Japan and took night classes at a photography school while holding down a day job. Being thirty-six years old, I was one of the oldest students in the class. Even after graduating, I had doubts about being able to make it as a photographer, but I had my sights clearly set on photographing Kilimanjaro, so with 1,000 rolls of film in my bag, I headed off once more for Africa as soon as I graduated.
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