Shōji Ueda

Shōji Ueda (植田 正治, Ueda Shōji^?, 1913–2000) was a photographer of Tottori, Japan, who combined surrealist compositional elements with realistic depiction. Most of the work for which Ueda is widely known was photographed within a strip of about 350 km running from Igumi (on the border of Tottori and Hyōgo) to Hagi (Yamaguchi).

Ueda was born on 27 March 1913 in Sakai (now Sakaiminato), Tottori. His father was a manufacturer and seller of geta; Shōji was the only child who survived infancy. The boy received a camera from his father in 1930 and quickly became very involved in photography, submitting his photographs to magazines; his photograph Child on the Beach (浜の子供), Hama no kodomo) appeared in the December issue of Camera.

In 1930 Ueda formed the photographic group Chūgoku Shashinka Shūdan (中国写真家集団) with Ryōsuke Ishizu, Kunio Masaoka, and Akira Nomura (野村秋良); from 1932 till 1937 the group exhibited its works four times at Konishiroku Hall (小西六ホール, Konishiroku Hōru) in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Ueda studied at the Oriental School of Photography in Tokyo in 1932 and returned to Sakai, opening a studio, Ueda Shashinjō (植田写真場), when only nineteen.

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