Toyokazu Nagano is no ordinary photographer. Whereas most kinen shashinka, or commemorative photographers, will have their subjects don traditional attire and adopt the exact same poses as the hundreds of patrons before them, Nagano is instead on a mission to commemorate the moments in our lives that all too often go uncelebrated, building whimsical scenes around his subjects that let their true personalities shine out.
It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that the idea for setting up a portrait studio that celebrates life’s little moments and does away with the kimono, sombre expressions and set poses should have come from a series of genuinely adorable, laugh-out-loud-funny photos of his daughters taken on a place that quickly came to be known as the “Magic Road”…
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