Hiroh Kikai

Hiroh Kikai was born in Yamagata, Japan in 1945. He began to take photographs when the influential editor Shoji Yamagishi showed him photographs by Diane Arbus in 1969. The Hasselblad camera that he bought at the time is the camera that he still uses today. He became a freelance photographer in 1984. Living close to Asakusa in Tokyo, he often spent time there and the area became the location for a series of portraits that he has been shooting for over 30 years. Kikai’s other photographic subjects include working and residential neighborhoods in and near Tokyo, and street scenes in India and Turkey. His latest book, Asakusa Portraits, was published in 2008 by Steidl and the International Center of Photography.