During his five-decade career, Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama captured portraits of numerous personalities, including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and the Beatles, among others, according to sources close to him. Shinoyama passed away on Thursday. At the time, he was 83.
Shinoyama, whose given name was Michinobu Shinoyama, documented the lives of numerous genre-spanning celebrities, such as Kabuki actor Bando Tamasaburo, novelist Yukio Mishima (1925-70), and singer Momoe Yamaguchi.
Kishin Shinoyama, who was born in Tokyo in 1940, gained prominence as a photographer during his enrollment in the photography course at Nihon University College of Art.
1968 marked the transition of Shinoyama from an advertising agency to an independent photographer position. Shinoyama’s portraits of Mishima, which he executed at the behest of the Japanese literary titan before his suicide, sparked considerable attention in 1970.
His photograph, which depicted Lennon and Ono kissing, was featured on the album cover of Double Fantasy, the duo’s 1980 studio album.
“I have recently captured images of subjects that captivated my interest,” Shinoyama, a native of Tokyo, stated in a 2016 interview.
Additionally, his work that featured the faces of the most prominent celebrities of his time on the covers of numerous weekly publications, albums, and celebrity photo anthologies earned him recognition.
His 1991 collections of Miyazawa and another actress, Kanako Higuchi, which he also photographed artistically nudely, were immensely successful, with the former selling 1.65 million copies.
However, his photographs featuring undressed women also generated considerable controversy. In 2010, a Tokyo court issued an order requiring him to pay penalties for public indecency and blasphemy on account of his capture of a naked woman in a cemetery in Tokyo.
Kishin Shinoyama did not contest the intervention of authorities in matters of freedom of expression that were sparked by the imposition of fines, stating,
“Since the 1960s, I have been photographing people in nudity outdoors. However, whether or not the conduct constitutes an offense is contingent on the prevailing sentiment of the time. It is unhelpable.”
In the interview, he stated,
“In regard to expression, absolute freedom does not exist.”
In addition to capturing candid images of celebrities, Shinoyama has documented commonplace individuals, noteworthy architectural structures, and urban landscapes.
Kishin Shinoyama photographed individuals affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, as well as the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex that was devastated by the disaster, in an attempt to document fleeting moments.
In the interview, when asked what he intended to film next, he responded,
“I have no idea. Inquire about that specific instant in time.”
Between 2012 and 2019, the total number of attendees at Shinoyama’s touring exhibitions across the country exceeded one million. Shinoyama’s works were featured in a substantial exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in 2021.
Gekisha, which refers to the process of capturing the pivotal moments of iconic personalities or events, gained significant attention following Shinoyama’s utilization of the term in his photographs.
Additionally, he gained notoriety for an innovative filming technique known as “shinorama,” wherein a series of interconnected cameras discharged their shutters concurrently.
Kishin Shinoyama was previously wed to Saori Minami, a former singer. Akinobu Shinoyama, their second son, is an actor.
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