There are different types of people called photographers. Also, the image changes with the times. Photographers like Ken Domon can no longer be called "endangered species" in modern times. I don't think there will ever be a "photo demon" like him who devotes his life to photography and devotes himself to the production as if he were obsessed with it.
Domon Ken 1964 (Ken Domon Memorial Museum) shooting the large phoenix of Byodoin Phoenix Hall
A look that exposes to the bottom of the person
Ken Domon was born in 1909 in Sakata Town, Akumi County, Yamagata Prefecture (currently Sakata City). His house was poor and he grew up with his grandparents to leave his parents for work. He moved to Tokyo in 2016 and moved to Yokohama in 2018. He was an honor student in the old junior high school, but he admires painters and is also enthusiastic about archeology. He graduated in 28, but the path was uncertain and he took up various jobs.
In 1933, at the recommendation of his mother, he became an uchideshi at the Kotaro Miyauchi Photo Studio in Ueno, Tokyo, and finally set the goal of becoming a photographer. However, he is not tired of taking portraits in a musty photo studio and is strongly influenced by the new German photography movement. In 1935, he joined the Japanese studio led by Yonosuke Natori (1910-62), who aims for German-style news photography.
With the strict guidance of Natori, Domon goes straight on the road to becoming a news photographer. He continues to shoot with the goal of appearing in the American weekly graph magazine "LIFE", which was first published in 1936, but becomes dissatisfied with the fact that all his works will be published under the name of Natori. In 1939, during a business trip to the United States in Natori, a photo of Foreign Minister Kazushige Ugaki was sent to "LIFE" magazine with the credit of "PHOTO DOMON" and published. As a result, the relationship with Natori deteriorated, and Domon decided to leave Nihon Kobo.
Since then, Domon has been developing a wide range of activities in the field of news photography while working for the Japan Foundation for International Culture (currently the Japan Foundation). However, from around this time, Japan was greatly inclined to militarism, and the Sino-Japanese War became swamped. Even so, he received high praise, such as receiving the 1st Ars Photo Culture Award in 1943 for a series of portraits and documentary photographs published in "Photo Culture". Kotaro Takamura, a poet and sculptor, wrote in response to the award, "Ken Domon is a bukimi. The lens of Ken Domon exposes people and things to the bottom."
With the intensification of World War II, his work as a news photographer had to be severely constrained. Domon tried to overcome this difficult time by enthusiastically shooting Bunraku and starting shooting at Murouji Temple in Nara, which can be said to be the origin of Japanese culture. From this time, he also started shooting portrait series of cultural figures such as Yasunari Kawabata and Ryuzaburo Umehara, which are included in his photo book "Fujou" (Ars, 1953) after the war.
《Yasunari Kawabata》 Photographed in 1951 = Ken Domon (Ken Domon Museum)
Absolutely non-directed documentary photography
On August 15, 1945, the long-running war finally ended. Domon also finished his time as a female prostitute and began to energetically present his work. There, the big issue was how to get involved in the fierce postwar social situation through his photographs. Domon will serve as a judge for the reader recruitment section of the photo magazine "Camera" from the January 1950 issue. "I would like to tilt all my beliefs, experiences and sincerity toward establishing photography as a modern art into an independent social and cultural existence," said Domon, who wrote his aspirations in every issue. In the examination with all my heart, I wrote a long comment and sent a belief to the applicants.
In this way, the photography movement called "realism photography" will flourish. Domon set out a concrete "thesis" of "absolute non-directed absolute snap" and "direct connection between the camera and the motif", and photographers all over the country responded to it. Among them, Takashi Kijima (1920-2011), Shomei Tomatsu (1930-2012), Kikuji Kawada (Kikuji Kawada, 1933-) and others are most likely to fly as photographers. It was.
"Kondo Isami and Kurama Tengu" From "Children of Koto" 1955 Photographed by Ken Domon (Ken Domon Museum)
Around this time, Domon began to think that he had to realize his own "realism photography" even in his actual work. In 1955, he released "Koto no Kodomo", which aimed the camera at the children in downtown Tokyo, but was not satisfied. I will go to Hiroshima from the moon.
"Ken Domon Complete Works 10 Hiroshima" (Shogakukan, 1985, materials owned by the Ken Domon Memorial Museum) (Editor's note: Waltham's pocket watch by Mr. Yoshimi, the chief of the Hiroshima Prefectural Police Guard. The hands at 8:15 are blown away)
By November of the same year, he stayed in Hiroshima six times for a total of 36 days, and visited the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hospital, Roppongi Gakuen, a facility for children with intellectual disabilities, the Hiroshima City War Disaster Child Training Center, and the Meiseien, a welfare facility for the blind. "As if I was taken", I continued to cover and shoot. Even after the publication of his photo book "Hiroshima" (Kenkosha, 1958) was decided, he still traveled back and forth between Tokyo and Hiroshima nearly 10 times, stretching 800 sheets from 5800-cut negatives to prints, and finally. 171 points were recorded in the photo book. The group of works, which can be said to be a masterpiece of the whole body, evokes a great response both at home and abroad. The strength of the gaze that looks directly at the subject of Domon, such as the scene of skin graft surgery at the beginning and the blind twin sisters of Meiseien, is fully utilized.
《Marriage between A-bomb survivors》 1957 Photographed by Ken Domon “Hiroshima” (Ken Domon Memorial Museum)
In December 1959, Domon took a picture of the Chikuho Coal Mine in Kyushu and Fukuoka Prefecture over a two-week period. This is to cover the coal mine workers who were closed during this period due to the conversion of the core energy from coal to oil, and to publish a photo book. "Hiroshima" became an expensive photo book of 2300 yen when the average monthly salary of office workers was 16,000 yen. Based on that reflection, "Children of Chikuho" (Patria Bookstore, 1960) was published as a "100 Yen Photobook" printed on Zara paper. The photo book, which is composed mainly of photographs of sisters who live in a barber shop with his father, has sold over 100,000 copies and has been made into a movie.
"Ken Domon Complete Works 11 Chikuho Children" (Shogakukan, 1985, Ken Domon Memorial Collection) (Left) "Ken Domon Complete Works 11 Ken Domon Children" (Hako) (Shogakukan, 1985, Ken Domon Memorial Collection) Document)
I collapsed due to cerebral hemorrhage and took a picture with a wheelchair
Chikuho's coverage was a major turning point for Domon. After shooting, he collapsed due to cerebral hemorrhage and was forced to rest for a long time. He revives in a desperate rehab, but as before, it's hard to move around and shoot. Even before Domon collapsed, he started serializing "Pilgrimage to Kodera" in "Camera Mainichi". Exploring the origin of Japanese culture through photography of old temples and Buddhist statues was a theme that had been conceived before the war. The lack of freedom in his body forced him to concentrate on the "pilgrimage to the old temple". It may have been a big hurt for Domon to be unable to face social events at the forefront.
"New Edition Ken Domon Self-Selected Works" (Sekai Bunka, 2009, Ken Domon Memorial Museum Collection) (Editor's Note: Close-up shot of the Kannon Bodhisattva statue at Yakushiji Toindo)
Nevertheless, Domon worked on the shooting of "Koji Temple Pilgrimage" with an indomitable spirit. He had repeated bouts of cerebral hemorrhage, and at the end he had his assistants push the wheelchair and continued to shoot while being carried up to the top of the mountain. When he pointed his lens at the eastern pagoda of Yakushiji Temple, where the darkness was approaching, he encouraged his assistants, saying, "I don't think it will move, so I won't move." There are a lot of episodes left, such as the "demon of photography".
Ken Domon being photographed at Murouji Temple Around 1966 (Ken Domon Memorial Museum)
The "Koji Journey" series (Bijutsu Shuppansha) was first published in 1963 with photographs of Horyuji Temple, Chuguji Temple, Yakushiji Temple, etc., and a total of five books were published by 1975. .. Literally, it was a masterpiece suitable for the life work of Domon. Taking advantage of the precise depiction power of a large format camera and the unique technique of striking a flash many times to dynamically bring out the light and darkness, the power to thin the details of Buddha statues and temples in close-up is unparalleled.
"Showa Photographs, All Work SERIES, 5 [Ken Domon]" (Asahi Shimbun, 1982, materials owned by The Ken Domon Museum) (Editor's Note: Domon succeeded in photographing the snowy landscape of Murouji Temple in his last years. (Kondo is visible beyond the snow armor slope)
In 1978, after the completion of "Pilgrimage to the Old Temple," Domon continued to have a greed as a photographer, such as taking a picture of Murouji in the snow, which he had been waiting for for 40 years. However, in September 1979, he collapsed due to a third attack of cerebral hemorrhage, and after that he will spend time in the hospital. He died in 1990 at the age of 80.
Ken Domon has always asked "What is the Japanese" and "What is Japanese culture" in addition to his sense of mission to record and convey social reality as a news photographer. He wrote in "My Favorite Things" ("Koji Journey", "Vol. 4", Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1971):
"Recently, I've been touring temples and shooting only Buddhist statues, so there are people who slap their backs asking,'Is the Domon a temple?' Even so, in my picture, the same Japanese who felt vitality a thousand years ago are talking. "
Ken Domon kept this belief for life and built a world of magnificent scale photography that is timeless.
Banner photo: Photographed by Ken Domon << Isami Kondo and Tengu Kurama >> 1955 (Ken Domon Museum of Art) Cooperation: Ken Domon Museum of Art
Japan's first photographic art museum that honors Ken Domon's achievements and houses all 70,000 works. Opened in 1983 as a memorial hall to preserve and publish his works. Designed by Yoshio Taniguchi. In 2009, it was listed as a 2-star facility in the Michelin Green Guide Japan. The award-winning works of the Domon Ken Award are permanently preserved in the museum. The Domon Ken Award is one of the most prestigious photography awards in Japan, which was established by the Mainichi Newspapers in 1981 to honor Domon's achievements. The works announced between January and December every year will be selected, and the award-winning works will be exhibited at Nikon Plaza (Tokyo / Osaka) and then held in the same building.
The Ken Domon Museum