Toyoko Tokiwa

(1928 – 24 December 2019 ) was a Japanese photographer best known for her 1957 book of text and photographs Kiken na Adabana , and particularly for its portrayal of the red-light district of post-occupation Yokohama, with US servicemen.

Life and career Toyoko Tokiwa was born in Yokohama in 1928. (As a photographer, she would later spell "toyo" in hiragana rather than the original katakana. ) Her family ran a liquor wholesaler at Kanagawa-dōri 4-chōme in Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama, where she lived until the building was burnt down in the American firebombing of 29 May 1945, an event in which her father sustained fatal burns. Her elder brother had used a Rolleicord camera and a darkroom, and this combined with a desire to work among men led Tokiwa to want to work as a photographer, even before she had used a camera herself. she was influenced by the realism of Japanese photography at the time (led by Ken Domon). – whose photography of postwar Japan appears with hers in a 1996 book – and work as both housewife and photojournalist. and chaired the Kanagawa Prefectural Photographers Association (, Kanagawa-ken shashin-sakka kyōkai).

Kiken na Adabana Front cover of Tokiwa's 1957 book Kiken na Adabana. Tokiwa is holding a Canon rangefinder camera with Nikkor-P 8.5cm f/2 lens, superimposed on which is a detail of the final photograph within the book (p.226). The red obi, partly covering the black-and-white dust jacket, advertises 100 photographs. In 1956 Tokiwa held an exhibition titled Hataraku Josei (, Working women) at the Konishiroku Photo Gallery (Tokyo) that won high acclaim. The exhibition showed pro wrestlers, models, ama, nurses and prostitutes. was published by Mikasa Shobō. Its text is divided into three parts:

Kiken na adabana (as explained above) Fāsutofurekkusu kara Kyanon made (i.e. "From Firstflex to Canon"; the Firstflex was a brand of twin-lens reflex camera made by Tokiwa Seiki, ) Kōfuku e no iriguchi no aru ie (i.e. "A House with an Entrance to Happiness")

Each of these is further subdivided into short essays. The text is in the first person and often about Tokiwa herself: the (composite) cover photograph and the photograph in the frontispiece both show Tokiwa holding a Canon rangefinder camera, in a period when photography was very much a male pursuit in Japan.

The text of the book is interrupted by four sections of photographs, taken between 1952 and 1957 (captions and technical data appear on pp. 242–241 ). There is a title on the first photograph of each; these are:

Aru machi no kurai onna no iru fūkei (i.e. "The dark scenery with Women of a certain Japanese town"). Mostly street scenes within this town (Yokohama) many showing girls and US servicemen. On pp. 44–45 appears Tokiwa's most famous photograph, taken in Wakaba-chō Bā-gai (, bar street), behind Isezakichō,

Television work From 1962 to 1965 Tokiwa produced the television series Hataraku Josei-tachi (, Working women). to an audience of about a hundred on her early days as a photographer, she was living in Yokohama and working on photographing people with Alzheimer's disease.

Other work In 1967 Tokiwa joined a committee choosing work for exhibition by Kanagawa Prefecture, and in 1987 she taught at Fujisawa Bunka Sentā (Fujisawa, Kanagawa).

Exhibitions In 1957, Tokiwa joined Tōmatsu, Narahara and others in the first exhibition of Jūnin no Me (, The Eyes of Ten). Until 1960, Tokiwa presented her work in several exhibitions, at least once together with Hisae Imai.

Tokiwa joined the Yokohama Photo Triangle exhibition in 2009, held as a part of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the port of Yokohama, where she also organized a civic participation program. Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art. Yokohama Civic Art Gallery.

Books by Tokiwa Kiken na Adabana . Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1996. . Photographs of Yokohama after the war; pp. 3–95 show Okumura's work, pp. 96–143 show Tokiwa's. Watashi no Naka no Yokohama Densetsu: Tokiwa Toyoko Shashinshū 1954–1956 / A Collection of Photographs by Toyoko Tokiwa. Yokohama: Tokiwa Toyoko Shashin Jimusho, 2001. Photographs of Yokohama, 1954–56.