Ken Ohara

As a young man, Ken Ohara emigrated from Japan to study photography at the Art Student’s League and apprentice with Avedon and Hiro in New York City. During those New York years, he undertook an odd and imaginative project, One, which was published as a book in Japan and included in the landmark exhibition New Japanese Photography, at the Museum of Modern Art in 1974. It was at this time, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. The close-up, identically-formatted images of faces of strangers on the street are a meditation on mankind in general, telling us finally, despite individual differences, we are all "one". During the ‘90’s his project, with, another investigation into portraiture, was produced. In these one-hour sittings with the shutter open, he created portraits that are unique and unusual, these images recall the dauguerrotype process. There is a dynamic created between the inanimate objects and the moving sitter. Here, the photographer is non-directive; the sitter, in a way, is allowed to "create" his own portrait, within an environment of his own choosing. Ohara’s work is in many major museums and personal collections.