Kensuke Kazama
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Born in Mie Prefecture, Kazama moved to Tokyo in 1978. He held exhibitions in Tokyo two years later. In 1987 he moved to Nanporo in Hokkaidō, and two years later to Yūbari. He lived there for 18 years.[1]
Kazama's photographs of the town of Yūbari and its abandoned mines and mining paraphernalia are in black and white, and employ a medium-format camera for detail and small aperture for great depth of field,[2] often allied with a formal composition. Mitsugu Ōnishi points out that the results "run counter to the ruins photography trend".[3] From 1994 his photographs of Yūbari appeared in the magazines Nippon Camera and Asahi Camera; he also participated regularly in Higashikawa Photofesta.
Kazama won the 18th Higashikawa Special Prize in 2002 and (for his book Yūbari) the PSJ newcomer's award and the 18th Society of Photography Award in 2006.[4]
In March 2006, Kazama moved to Mitaka, Tokyo.[5] His subsequent photographs of nearby Inokashira Park, which employ the same techniques as his photographs of Yūbari, have been published.[6] He would sell his prints for as little as 1,000 yen each.[1]
Kazama later moved to Sayama (Saitama), where in 2010 he was working more with photograms, mounting both food specimens and potato crisps lightly edited to resemble faces in a specially constructed negative carrier and enlarging from this.[7]
In 2014 Kazama finally moved to Tateyama (Chiba), where he continued his photography.[8]
Kazama had great trouble making a living. Despite complaining about ill-health, he would not go to a hospital. He posted his final comment on Facebook on 3 June 2017; his body was discovered at home on 17 June.[1][9]
Books by Kazama
- Live. Self-published, 1980.
- Sorachi tankō isan sanpo (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, Walks in the remains of the coalmines of Sorachi). Sapporo: Kyōdō Bunkasha, 2003. Template:ISBN. Kazama contributes the photographs.
- Kazama Kensuke shashinshū: Yūbari (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) / Kensuke Kazama Photographic Collection: Yubari. Sapporo: Jyuryousya, 2005. Template:ISBN. All text and captions in both Japanese and English.
References
- ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler (Iwamoto Shigeyuki), Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler (Kazama Kensuke-san), Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler (Hokkaidō Shinbun), 29 July 2017. Available here Template:Registration required.
- ↑ Takao Kajiwara, "Captivated by the beauty of collapse"; in Kazama, Yubari, 183.
- ↑ Mitsugu Onishi, "A steady gaze exposes reality to the light"; in Kazama, Yubari, 181.
- ↑ PSJ, a list of past PSJ award-winners; accessed 6 March 2006; Template:In lang Society of Photography Award Template:Webarchive; accessed 4 April 2007.
- ↑ Template:In lang Ichii Yasunobu (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler), "Monokuro o yaru ningen niwa anshitsu ga hitsuyō" (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, People who do black and white need a darkroom), Shashin Kōgyō (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler), May 2007, pp. 102–103. (An article about Kazama's Mitaka home/darkroom.)
- ↑ "Kaze o utsushita machi: Inokashira Kōen" (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler), Asahi Camera, September 2007, pp. 65–70. (These and other photographs are also displayed on Kazama's site Template:Webarchive.)
- ↑ Yasunobu Ichii (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler), "Anshitsu no naka de no ichigo-ichie" (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler), Nippon Camera, May 2010, pp. 78–79. Template:In lang
- ↑ Photographs by Kazama of sago, Nippon Camera, November 2016.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler (Shashinka Kazama Kensuke no fuhō ni sesshite), Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler (Gekkan-shi Template:Illm kōshiki burogu), 20 June 2017. Accessed 15 November 2017.
Sources and external links
- Kazama's site
- Template:In lang a site about Kazama Template:Webarchive
- "Minna shashin yaranaika," a fan's page about Kazama