Hiroshi Yagishita - Expressions of the Soviet People - 1957

Expressions of the Soviet People

Hiroshi Yagishita
Mikasa Shobo/1957/Japanese/260*183*10

Faces of the Soviet People” is a collection of photographs by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Yagishita. One of Domon Ken's students, postwar photographer Yagishita Hiroshi was born in Akita Prefecture in 1921 and worked for the Akita Forestry Office, which managed and administered the national forests under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Agency, and was involved in forest minister photography for a long time. On the other hand, as an amateur photographer, he participated enthusiastically in the monthly magazines “Ars Camera” and “Asahi Camera” (Domon Monthly), and studied under Ken Domon from the late 1960s onward. Having been involved in forestry photography for a long time and having experience as a whaling supervisor, he has created works on “forests” and “whales” as his life's work, and in the early 1980s published a book of photographs entitled “Taking Ken Domon's Photographs” on his mentor. This book is a collection of his early works published in 1957, when he was an amateur, and consists of illustrations taken during his participation in the Moscow Peace and Friendship Festival. The photographs of the Soviet Union at that time themselves are rare, and the humanistic snapshots are reminiscent of Robert Doisneau and others.