Haruo Tomiyama (富山 治夫), 1935-15 October 2016 was a versatile Japanese photographer, active since the 1960s.

Life and work

Born in Kanda (Tokyo) on 25 February 1935, Tomiyama dropped out of evening high school in 1956 to study photography for himself. From 1960 he was employed as a photographer for the new magazine Josei Jishin; from 1963 he was employed by Asahi Shinbunsha (publisher of Asahi Shinbun), and in the following year he started "Gendai gokan" for the company's news weekly Asahi Journal. The series — the literal meaning of whose title is something like "a sense for the contemporary language" — won Tomiyama the 1966 newcomer's prize of Nihon Shashin Hihyōka Kyōkai (日本写真批評家協会). In 1966 Tomiyama became a freelance, making extensive travels abroad. Tomiyama's book Sadogashima (佐渡島), a collection of photographs of Sado island published in 1978/79, won the Kodansha Publishing Culture Award (講談社出版文化賞) for a work of photography and the PSJ annual award. In 1994 Tomiyama was shown the archive of glass plates by the then-forgotten Sado-based amateur photographer Tomio Kondō. He printed many of these and acted as editor in chief for the first major collection of Kondō's works. This won him the PSJ annual award for a second time. Tomiyama's works are in the permanent collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Exhibitions

Books

Books of Tomiyama's work

Other books with contributions by Tomiyama