Masataka Takayama (photographer)

Masataka Takayama (高山たかやま 正隆まさたか, Takayama Masataka; 15 May 1895 - 14 April 1981) was one of the most prominent Japanese photographers in the first half of the twentieth century.

Takayama was born in Tokyo, Japan. As an amateur photographer, he published many of his works in the magazine Geijutsu Shashin Kenkyū (芸術げいじゅつ写真しゃしん研究けんきゅう), beginning in the 1920s. He remained an active photographer even after World War II.

He was talented at pictorialist (art) photography and took many photographs using a soft focus lens and deformation and "wipe-out" techniques.

Takayama usually used a "vest-pocket" Kodak camera (a very compact folding model taking 127 film) with a single-element lens (a tangyoku lens in Japanese). These cameras (and Japanese derivatives such as the Rokuoh-sha Pearlette and Minolta Vest) were popular in Japan at the time for snapshot use, and called ves-tan (ベス単たん, in Japanese pronunciation besutan) cameras; "ves" coming from "vest" and "tan" from tangyoku. Takayama's works are thus said to belong to the "ves-tan" (besutan) school.

References

• Kaneko Ryūichi. Modern Photography in Japan 1915-1940. San Francisco: Friends of Photography, 2001. ISBN 0-933286-74-0
• Tucker, Anne Wilkes, et al. The History of Japanese Photography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-09925-8
• (in Japanese) Exhibition Catalogue for The Founding and Development of Modern Photography in Japan (日本にっぽん近代きんだい写真しゃしんの成立せいりつと展開てんかい展てん), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (東京とうきょう都と写真しゃしん美術館びじゅつかん), 1995 (NO ISBN)
• (in Japanese) Masataka Takayama and Taishō Pictorialism (『高山たかやま正隆まさたかと大正たいしょうピクトリアリズム』) Nihon no shashinka (日本にっぽんの写真しゃしん家か, "Japanese Photographers"), volume 5. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten (岩波書店いわなみしょてん), 1998. ISBN 4-00-008345-7 [1]