[3] In the early half of her career, Yamazawa was engaged in portraiture and commercial photography, having produced work for major Osaka department stores.

[5] As a child Yamazawa enjoyed being creative, having described her childhood with fond memories of growing up in factories and playing with building materials.

[8] Through a serendipitous introduction by a local camera shop owner, Yamazawa began working as an apprentice to Consuelo Kanaga who was then primarily a portrait photographer in San Francisco.

[10] When Yamazawa came back to the US, she visited Kanaga in New York City and found a retouching job with Nikolas Murray, a photographer for Harpers Bazaar.

[12] n 1931, Yamazawa opened her own photography studio at the Dojima Building in Osaka's business district where she shot mostly portraits.

She become known as a shokugyo-fujin “professional woman” and penned essays in the journal Kagayaku published by Shigure Hasegawa as well as Fujin Gahou.

[15] As Yamazawa's reputation grew, she began photographing the artistic community, including playwright Shigure Hasegawa and actress Yasue Yamamoto.

[15] During the war, Yamazawa followed Yamamoto to Shinsu (present day Kohigashi, Chino) in Nagano with her photography assistant Kazuko Hamachi.

[16] At the time, Yamazawa borrowed an unused tofu mill and repurposed it into a studio, waiting until nightfall to use the running cold water for developing and fix images on the dirt floor.

Her final commercial project was the 60th anniversary book Hakurakuikko (1960) for Yodobashi jewelry store, for which she was in charge of the photography, design, and binding.

[20] Ikegami suggested that this discrepancy was because Yamazawa potentially viewed photography and painting as artistic equivalents, which Ikegami further substantiated by Yamazawa's frequent mixing up of the words "photograph" and "painting" in the interview featured in the film High Heels and Ground Glass made by Barbara Kasten and Deborah Irmas.