Two Male Japanese Photographers Born 1940s

These two male Japanese photographers discovered it at different times. They both were born after the Second World War, two atomic bombs, and lived in Tokyo as adults.

Two Male Japanese photographers, Katsumi Watanabe

We’re interested in some subject, the dark or less appropriate side of culture. Katsumi Watanabe seems to have taken a more documentary approach to the subjects. Photographing what he sees around him in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo during the 1960s and 1970s, or the blue light district also popular with Yakuza. This is something he would do after work, where he apprenticed for several years in 1962 at a prestigious portrait studio.

Date of birth: 1941 in Morioka, City, Date of death: January 29, 2006

Two Male Japanese photographers, Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki, on the other hand, comes from a tradition of art where he graduated with a degree; his work also concerns itself with the dark side or the less accepted part of our existence. His controlled the photo from the models, space all elements orchestrated by him.

Date of birth:  1940 in Tokyo, Japan Date of death: not dead yet

Both are portrait photographers interested in the character, creating an edge. That pulls them forward out of the confusion background into the light. This is something to see in films of the same period. The sharpness of the image is what draws me to their work.  I can clearly see something reaching out. Pushing to reinterpret for myself, to make it part of my language.

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