Ken Domon

Ken Domon (土門 拳) was a celebrated Japanese photographer known for his work as a photojournalist and as a photographer of Buddhist temples and statuary.

His entry into the photographic scene coincided with the flourishing of the medium in Japan in the late 1920s and early 1930s: photographic journals like Photo Times and Kōga allowed the Japanese public to view images produced by European avant-garde photographers.

As a young man, Domon was passionate about painting, and exhibited an oil painting at the Yokohama annual art exhibition in 1926.

However, fearing career instability, he decided not to pursue his interest professionally.

Domon was eventually able to finish his studies in 1928 despite his family's financial difficulties.

In 1929, Domon began taking courses in law at Nihon University.

He continued to paint in his free time and took shamisen lessons.

The exhibition Film und Foto, first held in 1929 in Stuttgart, subsequently traveling to Tokyo and Osaka in 1931, was equally instrumental in energizing Japanese photographers.

Additionally, the newly-available Leica, a small and affordable camera, allowed amateurs to begin taking photographs, which encouraged the development of new photography groups.

Domon familiarized himself rapidly with the medium thanks to his voracious consumption of lectures from hundreds of photography books and magazines.

From the outset of his career, Domon expressed an interest in photography with social and cultural themes.

Domon, who began his career in the 1930s contributing photo reportages to magazines that supported the increasingly militaristic Japanese state and its imperial policies, later criticized propaganda photography.

His subsequent termination from the government agency he worked for spurred his career as a freelance photographer.

As photojournalists grappled with how to depict the new social reality of the post-WWII period, Domon forged the realistic photography movement (Riarizumu Shashin Undō).

He embraced the idea of snapshot photography (sunappu), in which images could be captured with "absolute unstagedness".

Domon documented the aftermath of the war, focusing on society and the lives of ordinary people.

He received national acclaim for his portraits of children in exploitative labor conditions and Hiroshima bomb survivors (hibakusha).

Photojournalism began to transform in the mid-1930s as Japan became increasingly nationalistic in the wake of the imperial expansion, eventually leading to the second Sino-Japanese war and the country's participation in World War II.

Domon's pictures consequently became military-focused, depicting subjects such as Red Cross nurses and soldiers in training.

His compositions rely on tightly organized groupings that convey collective order and strict discipline.

The tension between Natori and Domon continued to grow as Domon developed his ideas on photography and began publishing his photos in other magazines.

Natori believed photography to be at the service of mass media, whereas Domon believed that the medium was a form of artistic expression.

In 1932, Domon was expelled from Nihon University for his involvement as a secretary at the Agricultural Workers' League (Nōmin kumiai), associated with the Japanese Communist Party.

He was arrested by the police and only released upon promising to break all ties with communism.

Domon's mother advised him to join the photo studio of Miyauchi Kōtarō as an apprentice in 1933.

From 1934 until the end of the Asia Pacific War, the agency published NIPPON, a photo magazine targeted at foreigners to promote Japanese culture abroad.

Art historian Gennifer Weisenfeld notes that as such "it served as a quasi-governmental organ of national propaganda", receiving support from several state agencies.

Domon has stated that he lacked confidence and technical skill working on his first assignments, but he soon developed his craft and with it his self-assurance.

Tension between the young photographer and his superior Natori soon set in.

The work of the Nippon Kōbō photographers was considered a "company product" and thus was credited only to Natori, to Domon's chagrin.

After publishing his first photo in the magazine Asahi Camera in 1935, he left his apprenticeship at Kōtarō's photo studio prematurely to work for Nippon Kōbō, an agency founded by photographer Yōnosuke Natori.

His first reportage for NIPPON, published in 1936 and taken with his Leica, covered the Shichi-go-san festival at the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo.

He then completed several shoots highlighting Japanese artisans and traditions.

These early black and white photographs are often artfully composed, with dynamic lines and forms.

In 1939, Domon left Nippon Kōbō after being recruited to work for the Agency for International Cultural Relations (Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai, "KBS"), a national propaganda organization.

His major project until the end of his career was photographing temples across Japan, a much-beloved subject that he had first begun to document in 1940.

Domon was forced to abandon sunappu photography after he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1958.

These images constituted the monumental series Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples (Kojijunrei), published in five volumes from 1963 to 1975.

Domon was born to a working-class family in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture.

After his father lost his job, Domon had to abandon his studies and begin working in a furniture shop.