was a renowned Japanese photographer. She is considered one of Japan's earliest women photographers and is among the few women photographers in Japan who were active both before and after World War II. First trained in Nihonga, she later studied photography in the U.S. under the mentorship of Consuelo Kanaga, and also exposed to the work of Kanaga's contemporaries such as Paul Strand and Edward Weston. After coming back to Japan in 1929, she established herself as a professional photographer. In 1931 she opened a portrait studio in Osaka, and in 1950 she established the Yamazawa Institute of Photography also in Osaka. In the early half of her career, Yamazawa was engaged in portraiture and commercial photography, having produced work for major Osaka department stores. In 1960 she shifted abstraction away from realism. Her work in this latter half of her career is characterized by her photographing art materials in distortion and reflection. Yamazawa's photographs were unique at the time for their use of vibrant color, which was in stark contrast to black and white photography championed by other Japanese photographers. Early life and education Yamazawa was born in Osaka as the third daughter to the owner of the Matsutari and Sada ironworks factory. As a child Yamazawa enjoyed being creative, having described her childhood with fond memories of growing up in factories and playing with building materials. She knew from a young age that she wanted to be an artist; she took painting lessons with the nihonga artist Rogetsu Mori and experimented with box cameras. From 1916 to 1918, Yamazawa attended nihonga classes at the Women's School of Fine Arts in Tokyo (currently Joshibi University of Art and Design) while studying yōga painting and photography on her own. After graduation Yamazawa returned to Osaka and moved with her family to the countryside. There Yamazawa was continuing to paint on her own and with the help of her friends under the group name Hoshi, she self-published her first book Eiko Gashū (1921). During this time, Yamazawa was increasingly more involved with the Christian church and took English lessons at the Osaka YMCA. Through the support of local YMCA members, she was able to attain enough money to travel to the US at the age of 27. America (July 1926 – February 1929) In July 1926, Yamazawa travelled to the US where she enrolled in still life classes at the California