Mitsuaki Iwago

Mitsuaki Iwago By: Erin Jung Mitsuaki Iwago is a wildlife photographer from Japan. He is famous worldwide, and has had his work featured on the cover of National Geographic twice. Iwago was born on November 27th, 1950 in Tokyo, Japan. His father, Tokumitsu Iwago, was also a photographer, so Iwago was exposed to photography from a young age. He says that he became interested in photography from before elementary school because there were always photography magazines lying about his house. However, he was never very interested in the cameras, but in the images themselves. He says that he was particularly drawn to the artistic photos, and not wildlife photography even though that was his father’s profession. At this point in his life, his favourite photographers included Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-­‐
Bresson. He remembers taking his first photo on an elementary school field trip, and then becoming more interested in photography in high school when he discovered the works of Richard Avedon. He became very interested in commercial and female portrait photography. By university, he had decided to make photography his career. In university, Iwago did not study photography, but economics because he believed that he needed a broader range of knowledge as an artist. He continued assisting his father as he searched for wildlife, and eventually his interest on the subject grew. What made Iwago decide to pursue wildlife photography was a trip to the Galapagos Islands with his father while he was in his second year of university. He says that when he saw all of the animals so up close and in all of their glory, he knew what he wanted to do in life. He soon graduated from Hosei University, and continued working under his father. Then when he was 26 in 1979, he won the Kimura Ihei Award for a set of coastline pictures called: “Letters from the sea” that had been a serialization in a magazine. This gave him the chance he had been waiting for to become an independent photographer. Iwago travelled all over the world in search of wildlife, and eventually became interested in photographing the lifecycles of animals and developed a plan to remain in one spot to go after his new plan. He chose Africa. The result of this move was a collection of photos called: “Serengeti: Natural Order on the African Plain.” He says that the main focus of his photos is light. Iwago believes that if the lighting isn’t right, then the photo is no good. He tries to capture emotions with the light, and makes great use of dark and light. He has travelled all over the world in pursuit of wildlife to photograph. He has been to Canada, Morocco, Kenya, Borneo, China, South Africa, India, Australia, Vietnam and Egypt, just to name a few. While in these places he searches for wildlife in their everyday lives, and tries to capture it on film. Iwago became the first Japanese photographer to ever have his work featured twice on National Geographic’s cover, once in May of 1986, and again in December of 1994. Since then, he has become spokesman for the Olympus Corporation, the company that makes his camera. Bibliography: http://www.digitaliwago.com/gallery/index.html http://www.olympus-­‐global.com/en/corc/corp-­‐ad/bm/e-­‐
system/vol15/iwago/index03.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuaki_Iwagō http://olympusprogallery.com/prophotos/en/gallery/photographer/mitsua
ki-­‐iwago/list/