I am a freelance photographer with over 20 years of experience based in London, available for editorial, corporate & PR, portraits & headshots as well as consultancy work. I'm a member of the British Press Photographers' Association.
I am very keen to capture a vivid glimpse into unheralded moments often hidden behind the surface of any subject as well as to inject colour into the frame where possible, whether the assignment is portraiture or reportage even in a short space of time. Understanding my subject makes it possible to incorporate them into an appropriate environment at an appropriate moment, which I would often like to take a form of juxtaposition. That could be compared to the way which 'haiku' poets apply in their art work as Roland Barthes saw the similarity between 'haiku' and photography.
My involvement in photography began as a teenage climber in order to capture mountains and fellow climbers in Japan. After having read politics at a university, social issues also became my photographic subjects to go with my stories as I started working for Japanese daily broadsheet The Mainichi Newspapers as a staff journalist. During that period, I gradually realised the possibility of photography as a universal language to take conceptual approaches to convey stories that were important to me. Before I decided to go freelance as a photographer, I completed master's degrees in contemporary war and peace studies, and photographic journalism in England.
Publication
I have regularly contributed as a freelance photographer to British, U.S./International and Japanese media. My photographs have also appeared in major publications such as TIME Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times (FT), The Guardian, The Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph, WIRED Japan, The Asahi Shimbun, Newsweek Japan, Weekly Toyo Keizai.
Selection/Award
My image of Julian Assange has been chosen as a 68th POYi (Pictures Of the Year international) Director's Choice (General News) in 2011. The 15 minute Japanese version of my multimedia project 'Letters From a "Spy"' (Original English title: 'A "Spy" Who Admired the Queen') has been shortlisted for the grand prize in the Tokyo Video Festival in 2016, and has been awarded the top prize in the contest of the Human Documentary Film Festival, Abeno, 2013.
Language
English/Japanese/French
Education
Master of Arts in Photographic Journalism with merit, University of Westminster, 2004
Master of Arts in Contemporary War and Peace Studies, University of Sussex, 2003
Bachelor of Laws, Doshisha University, 1993
