nightfall to use the running cold water for developing and fix images on the dirt floor. Yamazawa earned a living by photographing soldiers heading off to war in exchange for goods. Post-war Yamazawa returned to Osaka after the war and moved to the Hamachi Hospital in Kitakyutaromachi, owned by the family of her assistant. She worked as a studio photographer for the PX (US Army's Post Exchange) and then for the Osaka Mitsukoshi Department Store's photography department. She was one of the few people at the time who incorporated photography into advertisements and promotions, as they were typically drawn out by graphic designers. In 1950, she established the Yamazawa Institute of Photography at Hamachi Hospital Annex to mentor young women photographers. Two years later, Yamazawa opened her own commercial studio, for the last time, at the Osaka Sogo Department Store. Her final commercial project was the 60th anniversary book Hakurakuikko (1960) for Yodobashi jewelry store, for which she was in charge of the photography, design, and binding. Artistic career Yamazawa's move towards abstraction within her artistic career is marked by her second visit to the US in January 1955, when Kanaga invited Yamazawa to see her photographs shown in the exhibition Family of Man. There Yamazawa was introduced to numerous painters and photographers active in New York and visited Imogen Cunningham on her way back to Japan. As Yamazawa was increasingly pursuing her non-commercial work as a photographer in the mid 1950s, she eventually closed her studio in 1960. By 1962, Yamazawa published her seminal book Far and Near as declaration for dedicating her life to creative work as an artist. Far and Near consisted of 77 images of New York, still life shots, and early examples of abstraction, such as close-up images of tree rings and found objects, taken between 1943 and 1962. In Far and Near, the opening title translates to “Eye After Six Months in New York" in which Yamazawa spoke on her ability to create her own artistic work again after having been occupied with working in commercial studios. Yamazawa didn't make the conscious decision to focus on abstraction until the 1960s, evidenced by her first use of the word "abstract" in the title of her 1963 exhibition. By the 1970s, Yamazawa was fully committed to this style of photography, writing in her book Abstract Photographs (1976) that she “left photorealistic expression completely behind in the