Shigeichi Nagano

Who is Shigeichi Nagano?

Shigeichi Nagano is a Japanese photographer.

Born on 30 March 1925 in Ōita City, Nagano studied economics at Keio University. On graduating, he joined a trading company, but soon resigned. He was recruited by Natori Yōnosuke for Weekly Sun News; and in 1949 moved to Iwanami Shoten where, again under Natori, he did the photography for about fifty of the slim volumes in Iwanami Shashin Bunko. In 1954 he went freelance, concentrating on magazine work.

During the 1960s Nagano observed the period of intense economic growth in Japan, depicting the lives of Tokyo's sarariman with some humor. The photographs of this period were only published in book form much later, as Dorīmu eiji and 1960.

In 1964 Nagano worked on the cinemaphotography for Ichikawa Kon's film Tokyo Olympiad, and he then moved to work in film and television, particularly television commercials.

Nagano exhibited recent examples of his street photography in 1986, winning the Ina Nobuo Award. He has brought out several books of his works since then, and won a number of awards for them. Nagano had a major retrospective at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2000.