How did you become a photographer? Would you define yourself as a one?
I didn’t plan on becoming a photographer. When I was around 25 or 26 years old, I worked for a publisher. One day, I was told to go and do an interview, and I was given a camera. I didn’t know anything about photographic technique, but I did quite a good job. This made me want go a little further.
I enrolled in a photography school and studied photography for two years. I very soon understood that it wasn’t the technical or mechanical aspect that I was interested in but the relationship between the lens and everything around photography that interested me.
As I was rather gifted, the school offered me a teaching job but I refused. My mother was a left-wing activist and she often went to street demonstrations. She was a big influence on me. One day, I took photographs of a demonstration against the building of the American Yasen hospital in Oji. This was the first time I photographed demonstrations.
I am a photographer, and I am recognised as such. I also practice Āyurveda, but fewer people know this!
What drives you as a photographer?
When I started out, there were only two types of photography: commercial photography and documentary photography. I always refused to do commercial photography, despite being asked to and the financial advantages attached. I have stuck to documentary photography all my life.
Do you think there is such a thing as a ‘woman’s gaze’ in photography? Is this something you can relate to?
When I started out, there were very few women photographers. The media coined the term “woman’s gaze” as a way to differentiate our work. At first, I didn’t like this approach, but then I stopped paying attention to it.
As a student, I already stood out because I was the only woman. I could afford to continue being ‘different’ as a photographer. Nowadays, more than half of the photography students are women, but at the time I was the only one. In Japan, five years after me, Miyako Ishiuchi made a name for herself as a woman photographer.
Perhaps I became interested in environments dominated by men, such as the Tekiya (fairground traders) because I’m a woman?
Has being a woman influenced your work as an artist in any way?
Yes, I think so. It may have been a coincidence, but I am the only photographer in the world who was able to photograph the 1968 student demonstrations from the inside. I was able to take those pictures because I was a young woman and nobody paid any attention to me.
My first series on the Todai Zenkyoto was picked up in the news, and it’s from that time that I started to become known as a photographer.
Do you live off your art?
I am a woman who knows when to say “no”. It hasn’t always been easy, and I have turned down both news and corporate jobs. But miraculously, I still manage to live off my work!
Which authors have inspired you? Are there any women photographers among them?
I have met a lot of photographers of my generation such as Daido Moriyama, Kazuo Kitai, or Takuma Nakahira, but I can’t say they have influenced me. One artist who made a very strong impression on me is Susan Sontag. I discovered her innovative approach during my studies which is surprising as all I could think of at the time was documentary photography!
