Her photographs depict speeches, state violence and the aftermath of rioting.
Watanabe was born on March 23, 1939, in Tokyo, Japan.
After graduating from Meiji University, she began working for a publishing company.
[1] She came to prominence during the Zenkyoto student movement in the late 1960s, participating in the 1970 Anpo protests against the renewal of the Japan-US Mutual Security Treaty.
When the treaty was renewed in 1970, Watanabe began drinking fairly heavily as a way to deal with their failure to prevent it.