[3] After his graduation he worked as an architect for the Yokogawa Construction Company and began to take photographs, which he submitted to the publications and competitions of Kenchiku gakkai (the Society for Architectural Research).

Senda, a politically active socialist, was involved with underground theatre in Berlin, and with the Japanese artistic community in the city, which he introduced the Yamawaki's to.

[4] In 1930 Yamawakis, together with Senda, the painter Osuke Shimazaki, lacquer artist Kotaro Fukuoka and photographer Hiroshi Yoshizawa, founded the design studio Tomoe in Berlin.

The studio produced posters, gift-wrap paper and leaflets, and undertook window dressing and interior design for Japanese restaurants.

His photographs are strongly influenced by the Neues Sehen (New Vision), an avantgarde movement of the 1920s and 1930s espoused by Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy, which encouraged photography of ordinary scenes using unfamiliar perspectives and angles, close-up details, use of light and shadow, and experimentation with multiple exposure.

[2] Senda and his wife, Irma, returned to Japan in January 1931 on the Trans-Siberian Railway.They stayed for a time in Moscow on their way back, and Yamawakis and several others in the Berlin Japanese artistic community joined them for a week, visiting the theatre and seeing the sights.