Shoji Ueda｜Sand Dune Shoji Ueda

Shoji Ueda (1913-2000) was one of Japan’s most prominent modernist photographers and continues to be one of the nation’s most highly regarded. Working mostly in his home prefecture of Tottori, he frequently incorporated surrealist imagery into his photographs. He often used his wife and three children as subjects, with the local landscape of sand dunes as a backdrop. Six works have been selected from  his series SAND DUNE for inclusion in this collotype portfolio.

What is collotype?

In the 1880s, the collotype printing process was introduced to Kyoto and by 1905 Benrido had begun producing collotypes. Collotype is one of the earliest forms of printing techniques and was invented in France in 1855 by Alphonse Poitevin as a method for photographic fine art printing.  Due to the high level of print and archival quality, it has since been used primarily as a way to reproduce and preserve Japan’s National Treasures and cultural properties. Today Benrido Collotype Atelier remains as one of only a few studios left in the world capable of producing fine colour collotype prints.