Studio Equis

(b. Kochi, 1946-)

Selected Works

A selection of images by this artist can be viewed here

View images

Kazuyoshi Nomachi

Nomachi began his career as an advertising photographer in 1971, but on his first trip to the Sahara, aged 25, he decided to turn to reportage photography. After two years in the Sahara he travelled up the Nile and then on to Ethiopia.  Fascinated by the African continent for several years he began to turn towards Asia from the end of the 1980s. He became particularly interested in Tibet as many of his photographic series focused on religious practices and on the daily lives of those populations living high up in mountainous regions.

His travels then took him to the Middle East. At the invitation of a Saudi Arabian editor, he was given the opportunity to photograph the most sacred sites of the Islamic faith, Mecca and Medina. He converted to Islam in order to shoot these series and the results were published in many prestigious magazines including National Geographic. Nomachi has been awarded several prizes including the Ken Domon prize in 1984 and the grand prize of the Japanese Photographic Society in 1990 and 1997. In 2009 a retrospective of his work was held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.