Gen Ōtsuka

Otsuka's photographic production picked up pace during these years. In addition to his newspaper photographs, he took portraits and street photographs that captured the reality of post-war Japan, focusing on images that captured social trends and phenomena. His reputation only grew as he became the chief administrator of the All Japan Association of Photographic Societies, which was the largest organization for amateur photographers in 1958, and participated as a judge in various photography competitions.

When the Asahi Camera photography magazine restarted publication after the war in 1949, Otsuka worked with the magazine. This collaboration was radical at the time, as many newspaper photographers would have considered it a blow to their ego to stoop down and present their photographs on the same pages as amateurs. Ihee Kimura was the editorial advisor, and the magazine began to include works by foreign photographers and have columns on the latest global photography trends. Photographers such as Shoji Otake, Jun Miki, Takamasa Inamura, and Shotaro Akiyama featured prominently.

In 1945, Otsuka was promoted to deputy chief of the Photograph Department of the Asahi Osaka office. In 1948 he was sent to Tokyo as deputy chief of Asahi's Publications Photography Department.

In 1942, Otsuka was transferred to the Asahi Bangkok branch going to Saigon briefly before being sent to Singapore and finally Seoul in 1944, where he taught photographic and darkroom techniques to the staff of Mainichi Shinpo. But as American B-29s began to bomb Japan in 1945, he returned to Osaka. He was ordered to join a reconnaissance squad using the Shinshitei, Mitsubishi Ki-46 reconnaissance plane, to chase, photograph, and identify American bombers. These agile planes would climb up to 10,000 meters to photograph the B-29s, often drawing fire.

A year later, Otsuka finally joined Asahi in 1934 and was sent to the company's Osaka branch. He was posted not as a photographer but as a reporter in the social affairs department. There, he learned to write news stories and take documentary photographs. He never used a staff photographer and covered various topics such as police, general interest, army-related, and travel stories. But only a few years into his career as a reporter, the Second Sino-Japanese war began.

Gen was interested in dance when he was younger and often went to Takarazuka performances. Still, his father would not allow him to pursue it and forced him to enroll as a photography student at the Tokyo Industrial Art High School in 1929. During his student days as one of the six photography students in his class, he began working for many different clients as the demand for photographic skills increased. The Mainichi Newspaper commissioned Gen to take face shots for Mainichi Newspaper. Through his father's various connections in the burgeoning photography societies, Gen found employment at the Asahi newspaper when he graduated in 1933.

Gen Ōtsuka (大束 元, Ōtsuka Gen, 1912-1992) was a renowned Japanese photographer.

He was born on May 10, 1912, in the Kita ward in Tokyo, Japan. His father, Otsuka Masayoshi, was a pioneer of photographic retouching. After graduating secondary school in 1929, his father encouraged him to study photography at Tokyo Industrial Arts High School (currently part of Chiba University). He graduated in 1933.