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"Showing Yasuhiro Ishimoto my early photos established a benchmark for how I evaluate my work."
I have written and spoken of this before, but it was primarily the influence of the renowned photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto that made me choose photography as a career. As a junior high school student I was mad about cameras and used to take photographs of girls and other subjects for fun. But it was seeing Ishimoto's "Chicago" photos in a magazine that intensified my resolve and encouraged me to do better. In fact, I decided to enter the Kuwasawa Design School because Ishimoto was a lecturer there at the time. I wanted to show him some of my photos, but he was extremely busy, and it was difficult to catch him outside of class. So I went to his apartment in Gotokuji and sat on the stairs to wait for him. Eventually, he returned home with his wife, and I think it gave her quite a turn to see me hovering about!
Anyway, he examined my work, but to my surprise, said nothing at all. I discovered later that it was his habit to thank you if he thought your photographs were good, and simply to return them without a word if he was unimpressed. I'm embarrassed to admit now that the photographs I showed him merely mimicked his style, which obviously didn't impress him. That experience established a firm benchmark for how I evaluate my work -- imagining him saying thank you or remaining silent is a kind of litmus test for me.
While I was still at school, a camera magazine agreed to use some of my photographs. After my work appeared a few times, I received a Best New Artist award from the Photographic Society of Japan. They gave me 促50,000 to be used for a photographic exhibition the following year, which I thought was great. It was right at the time of growing resistance to the US-Japan Security Treaty in Japan. I found myself taking photos of Zengakuren student activists and young policemen, as well as apolitical jazz musicians, all of which I exhibited the following year under the title, "The Unfortunate Young." After that, I gradually started receiving job offers.
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