Tsuneko Sasamoto

was Japan's first female photojournalist.

Early life Sasamoto was born in Tokyo, Japan. She went to a college of home economics, but quit because of her ambition to become a painter. After dropping out, she attended an institute of painting without telling her parents, and a dressmaking school.

Career Sasamoto started her career as a part-time illustrator on the local news pages in Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun (now Mainichi Shimbun, one of the newspapers in Japan). At 26, she got promoted to a probationary employee in 1940 when she joined the Photographic Society in Japan, officially becoming the first female photojournalist in Japan. She stated that Margaret Bourke-White was a major influence in why she became a photographer. Sasamoto photographed subjects from General Douglas MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan to striking coalminers and protesting students.

She published a photo book in 2011 called Hyakusai no Finder, or Centenarian’s Finder.

Sasamoto turned 100 in September 2014, and died of natural causes on 15 August 2022, at the age of 107.

Awards 2016: Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement