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After embarking on a freelance career in 1972, Kenichiro Oyama lived in Paris for five years, writing and taking photographs. Since returning to Japan, he has been active as a photographer, teacher, and panelist, and his continuously updated exhibition series, "Gyoushi" (Gazing), has been shown more than 30 times. |
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"Forty days in Europe changed my life. I went freelance and moved to Paris the very next year."
My first experience of photography was in my second year of high school, when one of my sister's friends lent me a camera so I could take ID photos for my classmates. There was a darkroom at school next to the chemistry lab where I used to develop and print the shots, which I also got paid for.
After high school, I enrolled in the Art Department at Nihon University to study photography. But I was busy all the time delivering newspapers and working part-time jobs just to stay alive. Eventually, though, I did manage to get a job at a commercial photo studio, and found that I simply didn’t have the time to attend class. So I left university after the first year. I thought I could learn more from actual work than from lectures, anyway, and in fact working at the studio taught me a good deal.
I was only an assistant at the time, so I used to wait until the other studio staff went home before setting about polishing my portrait technique with the help of models kind enough to sit for me. I also used to prepare my own developer and work in the darkroom. Eventually, I moved on to work in the photography department of a design company where I devoted my time to photographing household electric appliances.
Then I moved to G. T. Sun, the top general photography company at the time, and was given the chance to shoot a wide range of subjects using large-format cameras. At the time, I was able to use 8x10 cameras as often as one would normally use a 35mm camera. It really increased my confidence as a photographer, and proved to be a big advantage later in life.
In my second year at the company, I got my first overseas assignment, which was to take landscape photos of Europe. It was a major turning point for me - 40 days in Europe changed my life. Traveling around Holland, Norway, Great Britain, France, Spain, and Switzerland, I learned a lot. And the following year, having worked hard for three years, I left the company and headed for Paris. There, I found the atmosphere and people suited me to a tee - and I loved having the freedom to drink a glass of wine even at lunch time.
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