Interview with Bruce Osborn, who took amazing portraits of Japanese parents with their children.
There surely are extensive sociological studies of the Japanese society: figures, numbers, tiny print on countless pages and lots of dry charts, too. But what about a more artistic, visual approach? In 1982 American photographer Bruce Osborn began what has become his lifelong work: the Oyako series. For the last 25 years he took pictures of one parent with one child in a white studio setting. Bruce even introduced its own version of the Japanese “Oyako No Hi” (parent and child) day: he organizes a huge photo session every year. After some time, Bruce would even repeat the same parent-child shoot to reveal the significant changes in the relationship between mother and daughter for example, the differing characteristics of fashion changing over the years or simply documenting people getting older.
In the photo: 1984: Parents Mitsuaki Ohwada/tattooist and Akie Ohwada/housewife. The child Keiko Ohwada is an elementary school student. Bruce: “Her parents were tattooists and the girl got a huge shock when she entered a sent?, a public bath, for the first time. Until that event it was in her mind that all the adults must have tattoos. Everybody around the house had some and it was a very natural thing for her.”