Artist from the Collection:
A Portrait of Yamada Minoru
Ishida Tetsuro

Curator, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

Artist from the Collection:
A Portrait of Yamada Minoru

Ishida Tetsuro
Yamada Minoru is part of the first-generation of postwar Okinawan
photographers. During the turbulent period from U.S. rule of Okinawa toits reversion to Japan (1945-1972), Yamada remained focused on everyday
life and children. In retracing his footsteps and trying to understand Yamada
as a person, however, we find that he was not merely a photographer: He wasa powerful figure who attracted people in a much more multifaceted way. In
the following essay, while touching on this multifaceted aspect, I would liketo present a portrait of Yamada Minoru.
First and foremost, Yamada was an important witness to the 20thcentury. He was born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1918. But the Yamada family,
descended from the Ryukyu warrior class, lived in the Higashimachi
neighborhood of old Naha, where they ran a business. Yamada and his
family moved back to Naha when he was two, and he spent his childhoodand adolescence there. After graduating from junior high school (underthe old education system) in 1936, Yamada moved to Tokyo to attenduniversity. He enrolled in Meiji University in 1938, and while studyingin the Specialized Department of Commerce, Yamada served on theeditorial board at the university newspaper for three years, exposing him toproletarian literature and journalism. His student life in Tokyo exerted astrong influence on Yamada’s life. After finding a job at Nissan Doboku (nowRinkai Nissan Construction Co., Ltd.) in 1941, Yamada was sent to workin Manchuria. In 1944, he was drafted and was assigned to the Kwantung
Army (the Japanese armed forces in Manchuria). Spending the rest of thewar there, Yamada was subsequently sent to a detention camp in Siberia. In1947, he returned to Japan and was demobilized. In 1952, he returned to hishometown of Naha and opened the Yamada Camera Shop. From that point
until the 2010s, Yamada managed the shop and was active as an amateur
photographer. To learn more about Yamada’s role as a witness of his times,❖1

we can refer to the interviews in which he recounts his experiences.
Next, I would like to discuss Yamada’s role in Okinawan and postwar
Japanese photography history. He was involved in a wide range of activities,
including helping to popularize cameras, promote photography culture, andserving as a liaison and coordinator for mainland photographers visiting
Okinawa. According to the critic Nakazato Isao, “He was the key man in a18❖1

Refer to the following for comprehensive
interviews with Yamada: Nakazato Isao,
Ushiban Naoko, Hirata Rieko, eds., AYamada Minoru Chronicle: Okinawa ,Photography, and Me, published by Lyricsof Time, Music of People, Pattern of Cities:
50 Years of Photographs by Yamada Minoru
Executive Committee, 2006; Ryukyu
Shimposha, ed., Okinawa: Postwar andYamada Minoru, Ryukyu Shimposha,
2012; “Interview with Yamada Minoru:
The Artist Discusses His Work,” Yamada
Minoru: People and Moment, Going by,exh. cat., Okinawa Prefectural Museum
and Art Museum, 2012.

❖2

Nakazato, “Foreword,” Nakazato, Ushiban,Hirata, eds., ibid., p. 1.

❖2

network of photographers’ groups.” At the dawn of Okinawan photography,
Yamada was invariably at the center of any gathering of aspiring
photographers. In 1956, after the Okinawa Times added a photography
division to its annual open-call exhibition (known as Okiten), Yamada’s
camera shop oversaw the developing of many of the submissions, and thus
made a positive contribution to the production of amateur photographers’works. Yamada was also a founding member of the Okinawa branch of theNika-kai, an art group that had been active on the mainland since before
the war, and in 1959, he was named head of the Okinawa Nikkor Club, agroup of Nikon camera enthusiasts.
Yamada was particularly well known as a guarantor and guide formainland photographers who visited Okinawa. When Okinawa was still
under American control, people from the mainland were unable to travel
freely to the area. To visit the region, it was necessary to have a guarantor.
The guarantor vouched for the visitor and agreed to take responsibility ifanything should happen. It was an era in which public security authorities
were on the lookout for professional photographers traveling to Okinawa.
In the 1960s, at the request of the editors of Asahi Camera, Yamada
served as a guarantor for people like Hayashi Tadahiko, Kimura Ihee, andTomatsu Shomei. Not only did he accompany them as a guide on theirshoots, he sometimes worked as a shooting assistant. Among the visiting
photographers he guided were Iwamiya Takeji, Hamaya Hiroshi, andOtake Shoji. Yamada also provided the painter Togo Seiji with the second
floor of his camera shop as a space for live modeling. He also accompanied
the avant-garde artist Okamoto Taro when he came to research the sacred
Izaiho ritual on Kudakajima Island in 1966. In 1974, after Okinawa
had already reverted to the mainland, Yamada oversaw the application
process for an event organized by the Tokyo-based Workshop School of
Photography in Okinawa that was taught by five people: Tomatsu Shomei,
Hosoe Eikoh, Moriyama Daido, Araki Nobuyoshi, and Fukase Masahisa.
Although the six-day workshop was limited to 30 people, who paid 30,000
yen (a rather high price at the time) each to participate, the event quickly
reached maximum capacity. Some of the participants were experienced❖3Ryukyu Shimposha, ed., ibid., p. 236.

photographers, but the majority of them were younger people in their 20s❖3and 30s. The photo historian Kaneko Ryuichi has suggested that at the timeof Okinawa’s reversion Yamada was a “media-like presence” – someone who❖4Kaneko Ryuichi, “Yamada Minoru andMainland Photographers,” Yamada Minoru:People and Moment, Going by, exh. cat.,
Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art
Museum, 2012, p. 218.

mediated between mainland photographers and their amateur counterparts❖4in Okinawa.
Yamada was also an amateur photographer himself. He taught himself
how to take pictures after opening his camera shop when he returned
to Naha in 1952. Yamada explained, “At that time, I had just started
photography, so I wasn’t sure what to shoot, and since I didn’t know any ofthe basics, I relied on camera magazines that I ordered from the mainland.”He also said that reading the monthly critiques written by a panel of judges❖5

Ryukyu Shimposha, ed., op. cit., p. 173.

(Domon Ken and Kimura Ihee) for an amateur photography contest in❖5Camera magazine was “the only way for me to study photography.” Yamada

19was heavily influenced by Domon’s photorealism – a “realism in whichhuman joy and sadness were expressed in an honest way.” But Yamada’s
decision to train his lens on children and the poor was not merely due
to Domon’s words in a magazine. Domon proved to be a catalyst, giving
shape to the interests that Yamada had cultivated until that point in his❖6Ibid., pp. 200-205.

life. This should be seen as the event that provided Yamada with direction❖7Nakazato, Ushiban, Hirata, eds., op. cit., p.
29.

❖8Ryukyu Shimposha, ed., op. cit., pp. 218219.

as a photographer. Later, he consistently devoted himself to taking picturesof daily life and children. Yamada also recalled how Hamaya Hiroshi
and Kimura Ihee had told local photographers that because Okinawa waschanging so rapidly it was vital for them to document it, and shoot regular❖6

life around them. These messages spurred Yamada on. At the time, it wascommon to make so-called “salon photos,” which depicted things such as
women dressed in traditional Okinawan dress. Yamada said that he was❖7

one of the only people who seriously attempted to document people’s lives.
No photographers of the period were focusing on children. The fact thatmedia coverage of Okinawa on the mainland dealt primarily with politicalconflict also had a strong effect on Yamada’s photography. He said, “Everynews report made it seem as if Okinawa was completely overrun withdemonstrators, and that made me think that I should document the real
❖8Okinawa.”
With a view to enhancing its collection of postwar Okinawan
photography, the museum began acquiring works from the region including
30 of Yamada’s pieces. These are snapshots dating from around 1960, a time

fig. 1

Shoeshine Boy, Kokusai Street (1956)

when Yamada was most actively engaged in photography. Among them
are scenes of Naminoue Shrine with a broken torii gate, ruined buildings
bearing fresh bullet holes, Shureimon Gate immediately after it had beenrebuilt, and the public market without any paved roads. The pictures areimportant in the sense that they are etched with memories of the city
at that time. They also provide a vivid record of the children and scenes
from everyday life that Yamada continually focused on. Take for example,
Shoeshine Boy, Kokusai Street (1956) [fig.1], one of Yamada’s earliest works.
Yamada brilliantly captures a momentary encounter with the boy, whocasts an impressive gaze in our direction. Meanwhile, the lively appearanceof the girl in Girl Working at Salt Farm, Yone, Tomigusuku (1963) [fig.2],
who is collecting grains of salt to take to the factory, leaves us with a deep

fig. 2Girl Working at Salt Farm, Yone, Tomigusuku (1963)

impression. Yamada’s precise composition and his acute sense of timing
convey the fact that the lessons he had received from his revered teacher
Domon Ken’s were not merely theoretical – they were embodied in his
photography in a physical form.
It was only relatively recently that Yamada came to be widely
recognized as an artist. In 2002, 30 years after Okinawa reverted to themainland, Yamada published his first photo book, Okinawa of the Children❖91955-1965. In 2003, an exhibition called Lyrics of Time, Music of People,
Pattern of Cities: 50 Years of Photographs by Yamada Minoru, and in 2012,a retrospective of the artist’s work was held at the Okinawa Prefectural
Museum and Art Museum. While on the one hand, more people began to20

❖9Yamada Minoru, Okinawa of the Children
1955-1965, Ikemiya, 2002.

❖ 10Nakazato, Ushiban, Hirata, eds., op. cit., p.
56.

take notice of his photography, Yamada maintained his lifelong stance as a❖10“photo craftsman.”
What was it about children in postwar Okinawa that caught Yamada’seye? He often spoke about the sights he had seen from the deck of thedemobilization ship he had taken back to Japan after being released fromdetention camp in Siberia in 1947. When the boat pulled into the pier at
Maizuru Port, Yamada saw a group of about 100 women and children,
who had come to greet the returning soldiers, as they vigorously waved theJapanese flag. This scene was unforgettably moving because he had been
convinced that the stories he had heard in Siberia about all of the Japanesewomen and children being killed by the American forces were true. At theopening ceremony for the Kaiho National Athletic Meet, held in Okinawa
in 1987, the magnificent sight of dancing children reminded Yamada ofwhat he had seen in Maizuru 40 years earlier, causing him to reflect on
the past. He said, “Our war-ridden age has come to an end. And Okinawa
has finally emerged from postwar chaos. I thought back on all of thechildren I had shot over the years, and to see children now dancing in such

❖ 11

Ryukyu Shimposha, ed., op. cit., pp. 248250.

❖ 12Nakazato, Ushiban, Hirata, eds., op. cit., p.
30.

a splendid way, I decided that that would be the last time I took pictures of❖11children.” His decision came just at the end of the Showa Period in the late’80s. Yamada commented, “We had invested all of our unrealized hopes in❖12that generation and the one after i t .” With these things in mind, we cansee that behind Yamada’s vivid pictures of children lay the photographer’s
experiences of the war and his deep feelings about the future of Okinawa.
In 2016, while I was conducting a survey on postwar Okinawan
photography history in the local area, I had a chance to interview Yamada❖ 13 I conducted my interview with Yamada at

the artist’s camera shop in Kume, Naha onMay 11, 2016. This text was written for “ASurvey of Okinawan Photography History
during the Occupation Era with a Focus
on Yamada Minoru,” a fiscal 2016 grantI received from the Pola Art Foundation.
The grant covered the period from April
2016 until late March 2017. Since then, I
have continued to conduct related surveys.
❖ 14The Meirindo, the first public school in thecountry, was established in 1714 during
the Ryukyu Dynasty. Okinawa Bunkasha,ed., An Easy-to-Understand History of theRyukyu Islands and Okinawa, Okinawa
Bunkasha, p. 52.

❖13

near the end of his life . He was 97 at the time. On the way to the Yamada
Camera Shop in Naha, I walked through the area where Yamada had lived
for many years. The Kume, Wakasa, and Izumizaki neighborhoods, where
he had lived as a child, were in the heart of old Naha. Also in the area
were Tensonbyochi, a sacred Daoist site dating to the Ryukyu Dynasty,and Meirindo, the elementary school that Yamada had attended which❖14

was located on the grounds of a Confucian temple . In front of the historicschool f lowed the Kumojigawa, a river that was spanned by Izumizaki
Bridge, a beautiful arched bridge made of stone. The bridge was widely
known as a notable site for moon-viewing, as depicted in Katsushika
Hokusai’s Evening Moon at Izumizaki, part of the artist’s “Eight Views ofRyukyu” series. If you walk down Kume Street, which stretches straight
toward the sea from the bridge, you will eventually arrive at NaminoueShrine, which has been venerated as “the first shrine in the land” since theRyukyu Dynasty. Historical heritages such as the Tensonbyochi, Meirindo,and Izumizaki Bridge were all burned or destroyed in the ravages of theBattle of Okinawa in 1945, almost completely wiping out the harmony
between the rich religious and cultural entities in this old neighborhood.
The vivid battle scars that are still apparent in the area from a work likefig. 3Torii at Naminoue Shrine (1958)

Torii at Naminoue Shrine (1958) [fig. 3], which Yamada shot after the war
just as he was embarking on a career as a photographer, are no longer visible21

today, more than 60 years later. But when you actually walk through theneighborhood, and imagine the huge gap between the harmonious worldthat must have existed there before the war, and the nihilistic scene of thedevastated Naminoue Shrine, you get a sense of Yamada’s earnest attitude
as he was inspired to begin taking pictures by focusing on the reality of his
utterly changed hometown.
Due to changing times, the Yamada Camera Shop in Naha had stopped
selling cameras and developing pictures. It now functioned as a place forphotography enthusiasts to gather and interact as they listened to Yamada’sstories. The show window of the store was emblazoned with a huge Nikon
logo (a relic of a bygone era when the shop had served as the company’s
general agent in Okinawa). It was also decorated with photographic panelsof Yamada’s most notable works.
To avoid overburdening the elderly artist, one of Yamada’s relatives,
Yamada Tsutomu, who had helped him with his work, assisted with manyof the answers to my questions. Even so, the artist himself treated me to
many invaluable stories about postwar Okinawa and photography. Yamada
talked about how he became covered in mud when it rained while walking
on the unpaved streets at a time when there were still almost no buildings❖ 15

on Kokusai Street. He talked about showing famous photographers from themainland around Okinawa. He talked about how, during the Vietnam War,In the English-speaking world, “Nikon”
is pronounced “Naikon.” The brand andother Japanese-made cameras enjoyedgreat popularity among the U.S. soldiers
stationed in Okinawa.

throngs of American soldiers would come to his shop in the middle of the❖15night, every one of them saying, “Naikon, Naikon,” and desperately hoping
to buy a camera before they left for the front. Each story, recounted in ahigh-pitched, hoarse voice, was a testament to the times and could not havebeen delivered by anyone but him. Moreover, though Yamada continued
to speak calmly, I sometimes caught a glimpse of the steely strength thatgrew out of his experiences during that difficult age. Thinking back on thismeeting with Yamada, which happened just before the end of the Heisei
Period (1989-2019), he seems like an informant from the oldest generationthat could still talk about Okinawa and photography.
When I left the shop after the interview, I suddenly caught sight ofthe sign with the shop’s name on the glass entrance. It had originally read
“Yamada Shashinkiten” (Yamada Camera Shop), but the character for ki(“machine”) was now missing [fig.4]. The reason for this was that Yamada
had stopped selling cameras. But the fact that only one letter had peeledaway and the rest were still there struck me as slightly humorous. It seemed
to imply that you could rely on the fact that at heart things were the same
despite all of the changes that the shop had deftly navigated with the times.
Somehow it seemed to symbolize Yamada Minoru, a survivor of many ages.
Translated by Christopher Stephens

22fig. 4

Yamada Minoru in front of the Yamada Camera Shopin 2016 (author’s photo).