is a California-based Japanese photographer.

Born in Sapporo in 1951, Watanabe graduated from the Department of Photography of Nihon University

Nihon University

Nihon University is the largest university in Japan. Akiyoshi Yamada, the minister of justice, founded Nihon Law School in October 1889....

 in 1975 and moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a production coordinator for Japanese television commercials and later co-founded a Japanese coordination services company. He obtained an MBA from UCLA in 1993, but two years later his earlier interest in photography revived; from 2000 he has worked full time at photography.

After five self-published books, Watanabe's first to be published conventionally was I See Angels Every Day, monochrome portraits of the patients and other scenes within San Lázaro psychiatric hospital in Quito

Quito

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...

, Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

. This won the 2007 Photo City Sagamihara

Photo City Sagamihara

is a photographic award that has been sponsored annually by the city of Sagamihara since 2001.There are four kinds of awards: the main prize for professionals , prizes for newcomer professionals , one prize for Asian photographers , and various awards for amateurs...

 award for Japanese professional photographers.

In 2005, a portfolio of his work was featured in Nueva Luz photographic journal, volume 10#3. In 2007 Watanabe won a "Critical Mass" award from Photolucida that allowed publication of his monograph Findings.

Watanabe's works are in the permanent collections of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, George Eastman House

George Eastman House

The George Eastman House is the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in Rochester, New York, USA. World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the museum is also a leader in film preservation and...

, and Santa Barbara Museum of Art

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...

.

Books by Watanabe

• Veiled Observations and Reflections. West Hollywood, Calif.: Hiroshi Watanabe, 2002.
• Faces. West Hollywood, Calif.: Hiroshi Watanabe, 2002–2005.
  • 1. San Lazaro Psychiatric Hospital. 2003.
  • 2. Kabuki Players. 2003.
  • 3. Ena Bunraku. 2005.
  • 4. Noh Masks of Naito Clan. 2005.
• Watakushi wa mainichi, tenshi o mite iru / I See Angels Every Day. Tokyo: Mado-sha, 2007. ISBN 978-4-89625-085-5
• Findings. Portland, Ore.: Photolucida, 2007. ISBN 978-1-934334-00-3.
• Paradaisu ideorogī / Ideology in Paradise. Tokyo: Mado-sha, 2008. ISBN 978-4-89625-091-6. Photographs of North Korea.
• Suo Sarumawashi. Santa Fe, N.M.: Photo-Eye, 2009. ISBN 0-93409270-0-6.

External links

• Watanabe's site
• Hiroshi Watanabe on En Foco
• Garcia-Guzman, Miguel. "Hiroshi Watanabe". [EV+/-] Exposure Compensation, October 2007. An essay on Watanabe's work, generously illustrated with photographs.
• Records, Shawn. "Hiroshi Watanabe's Findings". 40 Watt. A review of Findings, generously illustrated with photographs.
• Watanabe preserves life in portraits, observations, Fotophile.com review of Watanabe's exhibition in Austin, Texas.
• Hiroshi Watanabe's exhibition: "Comedy of Duble Meaning" at Takeda Art Co [www.takeda-bijyutu.com}