shashasha

Shigeo GOCHO was born in 1949 in Kamo, Niigata Prefecture. At the age of three he suffered a spinal caries. Though his life was saved, he was left severely handicapped and would live in pain and under the threat of death for the rest of his life. He died in 1983 at the age of 36. Gocho published three books; “Days (1971), Self and Others (1977), and Familiar Street Scenes (1981).
In 1968, he published his first photos in Camera Mainichi, a famous photo magazine. They were four photos of children, and they were part of a feature called ‘Symposium: Contemporary Photography,” which is now regarded as the starting point of the ‘Conpora’ movement. (‘Conpora’ abbreviates ‘contemporary.’) Conpora photographs are mostly taken on the horizontal. These photographers use the camera in the simplest way possible; their subjects are the most ordinary from daily life. And Gocho was regarded as a representative photographer in the movement.
After graduating, Gocho worked as a graphic artist, and tried to pursue his photographic career, occasionally publishing photos in magazines, and putting his energies into the self-published books “Self and Others” and “Familiar Street Scenes”. These two books differ greatly the one from the other, but both highlight aspects of Gocho’s vision. The earlier seems perfect in form, while the later book shows the artist setting out in a new direction.