Iwase Yoshiyuki | Photograph

IWASE Yoshiyuki (1904-2001)
Vintage gelatin silver print, 1940
20.4 x 28.8 (8 x 11 1/4 in.)
stamped on the back
 
In 1904, Yoshiyuki Iwase was born in Onjuku, a fishing village in the Chiba prefecture. He studied law in Meiji University in Tokyo. He was the heir to his family’s sake distillery and he found his inspiration as he documented the traditional life of the people living on the pacific side of Chiba peninsula.
The young Iwase received a Kodak camera as a gift and he found his passion for primitive beauty of ama, girls and women who dove for and harvested abalone, seaweeds, and turban shells when the tides were favorable and the temperature was bearable. The ama became his muse and passion and Iwase’s amazing photographs remain as the final and most comprehensive visual proofs and records of the life of the ama divers.