Photographer Kei Ono. Even if you don't know the name, many people have probably seen the photos taken by Ono.
A typical example of Ono's client work would be the cover art for Ryo Asai's novel "Kirishima, stop club activities", which was also a hit in the movie. In addition, for Nogizaka46's single "Harujion ga Saku Koro", 5 patterns of jackets were created with photos of the members taken by Ono, and the panel exhibition at Nogizaka Station on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line also became a hot topic.
Ono, who is also active in magazines and advertisements, studied photography at a vocational school after graduating from university. There is a subject that he has been pursuing since that time. That's high school.
"Photos" I lost while taking pictures of my friends
"When I started taking pictures, I thought that I would be able to keep taking pictures for at most four years."
Ono, who will turn 45 this year, looks back, but this summer will mark 20 years since he started photographing high school students.
《We are looking for “high school students” who can take pictures. 》
Ono is looking for subjects on his website.
Even in the digital era, he continued to shoot using medium format film cameras, and over the past 20 years he has captured over 700 high school students on film.
Ono's generation includes HIROMIX, who has been active since his teens using a compact film camera, and Ono also said that he used a compact camera to take snapshots of his friends when he was a university student.
"I lost track of what I was doing when I was taking photos of my friends. Photos are... Depending on the settings, you can take pictures that make them look like they're on good terms or not. Come on. I wanted to study."
The "mysterious energy" of a high school student
He entered a vocational school and began photography in earnest. Initially, she took black and white street snapshots, but before graduating, she changed her style and started using high school students as her subjects.
"I was interested in people. People are full of mysteries, aren't they? It's the most difficult thing to understand, so I wanted to learn about them in my own way through photography."
I think that high school students have a very condensed, mysterious energy inside them. When I actually confronted him, I felt that kind of thing, and I wanted to take a picture so as not to miss that kind of thing.
Besides, I felt that high school students represented the society of the time. I just wanted to know what they were thinking."