Eiko Yamazawa

was a renowned Japanese photographer. She is considered one of Japan's earliest women photographers and is among the few women photographers in Japan who were active both before and after World War II. First trained in Nihonga, she later studied photography in the U.S. under the mentorship of Consuelo Kanaga, and also exposed to the work of Kanaga's contemporaries such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston.

After coming back to Japan in 1929, she established herself as a professional photographer. In 1931 she opened a portrait studio in Osaka, and in 1950 she established the Yamazawa Institute of Photography also in Osaka. In the early half of her career, Yamazawa was engaged in portraiture and commercial photography, having produced work for major Osaka department stores. In 1960 she shifted abstraction away from realism. Her work in this latter half of her career is characterized by her photographing art materials in distortion and reflection. Yamazawa's photographs were unique at the time for their use of vibrant color, which was in stark contrast to black and white photography championed by other Japanese photographers. Provided by Wikipedia