Mike Nogami

Mike Nogami (野上 眞宏, Nogami Masahiro, born August 27, 1947) is a Japanese photographer. Aera (magazine) called him "the Jacques Henri Lartigue of Japan."Kazumi Koguma, "Music Street" column, Aera, November 12, 2014 Born and raised in Tokyo, he is best known for his photographs of Japanese rock musicians, in particular the band Happy End (band)|Happy End.Michael K. Bourdaghs, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Prehistory of J-Pop (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), p. 166, Nogami was classmates with bassist Haruomi Hosono at Rikkyo University and began shooting Happy End from its earliest amateur incarnations. He continued to regularly photograph the band's recording sessions and live performances until it broke up in 1973.:ja:%E9%87%8E%E4%B8%8A%E7%9C%9E%E5%AE%8F|Japanese Wikipedia entry The Japan Times newspaper described his photographs of the band as "brilliant" with "a kind of intimacy that can only come from the one photographer that Happy End’s four members trusted enough to click a shutter around them."Dexter Thomas, "Flipping Through Rock's Baby Pictures," The Japan Times, December 2, 2014 Nogami's work was featured on the record jacket for Happy End's second album, Kazemachi Roman (1971), declared by Rolling Stone Japan to be the greatest Japanese rock album of all time.Happi na hibi (Tokyo: Music Magazine, 2000). Cam Lindsay, "Finally! 'The 100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time' Listed" Nogami's autobiographical reminiscences of this period in his life were serialized under the title Happi na hibi (Happy Days) in ' magazine (December 1998-January 2000) and then published in book form under the same title in 2000. 
After the break up of Happy End, Nogami continued to photograph rock musicians, including Yellow Magic Orchestra, , Sadistic Mika Band, Maria Muldaur, and Little Feat, among others.Nogami's Little Feat photographs In 1974 he moved to the United States, eventually settling down in New York City, where the focus of his work shifted to urban landscapes. He has exhibited his New York photographs at numerous solo exhibitions, including the 1995 show "New York: Sacred Ground" at the OK Harris Gallery in New York City and the 2012 show "When New York was Sexier" at LeDeco Gallery in Shibuya, Tokyo. He has also published several collections of his New York photographs, including New York-Holy City (1997).
In 2012, he directed The First Step Featuring The Suzan, a documentary film about the New York-based female Japanese rock band, The Suzan.Trailer for the film The First Step Featuring The Suzan https://vimeo.com/50497018 In 2014, he released Mike Nogami's Snapshot Diary, an I-Pad application that included more than 4,000 of his photographs together with audio commentary from Hosono and others and received widespread media coverage in Japan. "Mike Nogami & Haruomi Hosono: Happy End in Photographs and Talk" magazine, November 25, 2014 "Masatoshi Nogami Photography Collection App: 4,000 Pictures of Happy End and Others, Audio Commentary by Haruomi and others" Cinra.net news story, October 14, 2014 
==Works==
* New York – Holy City (Tokyo, 1997). 
* Happi na hibi (Tokyo: 2000). 
* HAPPY　SNAPSHOT DIARY： Tokyo 1968-1973 (Tokyo: 2002).
* When New York was Sexier (Limited edition, 2012)
* Metroscape, Vol. 1 (Limited edition, 2012)
* Metroscape, Vol. 2 (limited edition, 2012)
* Shibuya 1999 (with Masami Takahashi) (Tokyo: Zen Foto Gallery, 2016)
* Blue: Tokyo 1968-1972 (Tokyo: Osiris, 2018)
Category:1947 births
Category:Japanese photographers
Category:People from Tokyo