Kishin Shinoyama was born in Tokyo in 1940. At age 26, he was deemed Japan's most promising young photographer by the Japan Photo Critics Association, and has since become renown for photographing everything from kabuki performances to lots and lots of naked women.
He's the one that took those scandalous photos of actress Rie Miyazawa naked back in the early 90s. (I remember this well, because I was in the 7th grade and we were obsessed with it like the rest of the country.) After that, Miyazawa became severely anorexic and disappeared from the spotlight. (Anyone know where she is?)
A less-known fact about Kishin is that he photographed the cover of John Lennon's last album, Double Fantasy.
These days, he just takes tons of color photos of sexy "gravia" pin-up models, but don't pass him off for just another dirty old man--he did some great black and white photos back in the day. A couple samples after the jump....
Rie Miyazawa is still around apparently and seems to be doing well these days, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rie_Miyazawa
Posted by: Jonny G. | February 05, 2007 at 04:43 PM
Curiously, one of the several times she disappeared from Japan, she moved to Honolulu and married a sushi chef. They lived together for a short time in the same apartment building my wife and I lived in Waikiki. I wouldn't have know it was her, except for the identification from my wife. Shortly before she left, on two occations, the building parking lot was overcome by Japanese film crews. That was the only excitement. She left the sushi chef and went back to Japan.
Posted by: Dean Walter | February 06, 2007 at 08:02 PM