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"At university, nobody knew much about photomicrography, so I used to assemble equipment myself to take ultra-macro shots."
As a boy I was surrounded by photographs, so they've always been part of my life. Just after the war, when film was really scarce, my father's skill with a camera got him a job at an Occupation Forces base, where he even photographed General McArthur himself. With the advantages of such an environment, I was lucky to be able to use Kodak film, which was much prized in those days, from the time I was in primary school. I was even asked to take photographs of the happy couple at my homeroom teacher's wedding. Later, in junior high school, I started developing and printing my own photos. And then at high school, one of my photos won an award in a photojournalism contest sponsored by a newspaper. The camera I used to take the winning shot was an Olympus Flex with a D-Zuiko F3.5 lens. I still have it on display in my home.
A few years later, I took the exams to enter the Art Department of Nihon University. But I was more interested in natural science at the time, and eventually entered Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University. In the research lab, we studied mainly cytology and histology using microscopes. Unfortunately, nobody knew much about photomicrography, so the photos were usually out of focus. In the end, I had to build my own ultra-macro set-up. Since I didn't have the appropriate lenses for the job, I frequently made enquiries and purchased items at the Olympus Hatagaya Factory. That was when my relationship with Olympus began.
I became intimately familiar with microscopes, and much of what I learned formed the basis of my subsequent book, "Micro and Macro." Anyway, shortly after my initial work with microscopes, the Olympus OM-2 came out. Its direct, off-the-film exposure metering really surprised me. I realized that all the exposure calculation data I had collected over the years had suddenly become unnecessary, and wondered what I'd worked so hard for.
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