Shunji Dodo (百々 俊二, Dodo Shunji) is a Japanese photographer of the Kii Peninsula, Osaka, and other subjects.
Life and career
Dodo was born in Osaka in 1947.[1] He graduated in fine arts from Kyushu Sangyo University in 1970,[1] and started teaching at Tōkyō Shashin Senmon Gakkō (now Visual Arts College Tokyo).[2] Two years later he started work as a teacher of photography at Ōsaka Shashin Senmon Gakkō; in 1998 he was made head of the school, by that time renamed Visual Arts College Osaka.[1]
Dodo was present when the film director Naomi Kawase, who had first been a student of his[3][4] and was later teaching at Visual Arts Senmon Gakkō, had her first baby on 24 April 2004, in Nara. This was filmed as Tarachime (垂乳女) and Dodo photographed the event; the photographs were exhibited in Nara, Tokyo, and Locarno,[1] and published as Haha (花母).
Dodo's book of large-format black-and-white photographs A Radiant Land: Kii Peninsula won the PSJ's Annual Award for 1995; his later collection of large-format colour photographs of the peninsula, A Radiant Land with Thousands of Years, was exhibited in Nara City Museum of Photography in 2000.[1] The latter work also won him the Ina Nobuo Award in 1999.[5]
Dodo has said that his major influences were Shōmei Tōmatsu, especially his Ryūkyū series "Pencil of the Sun", and Yutaka Takanashi, for the way in which Takanashi's concentration on Tokyo showed Dodo his own possibilities in Osaka.[6] Among the photographers he admires are Robert Frank and William Klein.[6]
Actor, Tsunagari-yuku mono (つながりゆくもの) / Things Passed Down (dir. Naomi Kawase, 2009). Dodo plays the gruff photographer father in this long commercial for Nikon.[17]
Shashin "Ningen no machi" 93/94 (写真[人間の街]93/94) / Faces of Humanity 93/94. Edited by Shunji Dodo, George Hashiguchi, and Naomi Yanagimoto. Published by the editors (at their respective addresses), 1994. (in Japanese and English) Much of the text is in English as well as Japanese. On pp. 156–65 Dodo presents his own series, "Kaosu 1969–1970" (カオス 1969・1970), photographs of people from US military bases and of protests against these.
Rakudo: Kii hantō (楽土 紀伊半島) / A Radiant Land: Kii Peninsula. Osaka: Brain Center, 1995. ISBN4-8339-0525-6. Large-format black-and-white photographs of the Kii Peninsula. (in Japanese and English)
Sennen rakudo (千年楽土) / A Radiant Land with Thousands of Years. Osaka: Brain Center, 2000. ISBN4-8339-0530-2. Large-format colour photographs of the Kii Peninsula. (in Japanese and English)
Sharasōju (沙羅双樹) / Shara. Nara: Sento/Kumie, 2003. With Naomi Kawase; black-and-white photographs of the making of, and production notes for, Kawase's film Shara.(in Japanese and English)
Haha (花母). Nara: Gallery Out of Place, 2006.
Saien + sakura (菜園+サクラ) / A Vegetable Garden, Sakura. Osaka: Vacuum Press, 2009. ISBN978-4-9903288-4-9. Black-and-white photographs of the products of Dodo's vegetable garden, and of cherry blossoms. (in Japanese and English)
Ōsaka (大阪 / Osaka. Kyoto: Seigensha, 2010. ISBN978-4-86152-255-0. Large-format black-and-white photographs of Osaka. (in Japanese and English)
Haruka na chihei (遙かなる地平 / Horizon far and away 1968–1977. Tokyo: Akaakasha, 2012. ISBN978-4-903545-87-5. Numerous series of Dodo's older photographs. (in Japanese and English)
Nihonkai (日本海 / Japan Sea. Tokyo: Akaakasha, 2014. ISBN978-4-86541019-8. Photographs of the Sea of Japan coastal area. (in Japanese and English)
Sorahoderi no machi (空火照の街 / A City Aglow. Tokyo: Case, 2019. ISBN978-4-908526-37-4. (in Japanese and English)
^As stated by the continuity voice in a program about Dodo broadcast on MBS on 21 May 2010. (Transcription[permanent dead link], accessed 2010-08-25.) (in Japanese)