Ueda began using posed figures and objects in his photographs in 1939, but would be forced to cease his production due to Japan's participation in World War II.
His surreal Sand Dune series, of which the first images were published 1949, was overshadowed by the predominance of social realism, a major trend in Japanese post-war photography.
Ueda Shōji was born to a merchant family in the port town of Sakaiminato, Tottori prefecture, on the western coast of the Sea of Japan.
Ueda discovered in the pages of the British magazine Modern Photography the work of André Kertész, Man Ray, Emmanuel Sougez and more.
[3]: 9 He notably retained the photographers' spirit of experimentation, which inspired him to create photograms, play with perspectives and toy with the framing of his images as he began to develop his own style.
He also co-founded the Chūgoku Photographers Group, alongside Ishizu Ryōsuke, Masaoka Kunio, and Akira Nomura, which aimed to develop a modernist photography distinct from that of the major urban areas.
[3]: 10 Ueda's 1939 photograph Shōjo shi tai (Four Girls, Four Positions) was a significant turning point for the artist, marking the beginning of his staged pictures.
He joined Ginryūsha, a Tokyo-based association of Japanese photographers active before the war, and came to know Kuwabara Kineo, editor of the influential photography magazine Camera.
Kuwabara proposed that Ueda shoot a series of images of fellow photographer Domon Ken in the Tottori sand dunes, which were published in Camera in September 1949.
Art historian Yumi Kim Takenaka aptly describes his work at the time as follows: "Ueda's photographs seem to overflow with pleasure to be able to make his own photography freely again.
It is notable in this context that avid realist Domon himself praised Ueda, calling his compositional style "a delight created entirely by the thoughts and emotions of the artist".
Curator Kaneko Ryuichi posits that these endeavors, which remain overlooked even today, confirmed Ueda's self-identification as a "lifelong amateur photographer", which he would continue to say of himself even after gaining international recognition.
[2]: 191 Yumi Kim Takenaka has argued that Ueda maintained his signature mysterious and surreal aesthetic, sometimes called Ueda-chō (Ueda-tone), in the creation of these regional images.
Unlike Ueda's purified sand dune compositions, Warabe Goyomi takes the viewer out of dreamland and into the daily life of the San'in region.
[8] These graceful images, instantly recognizable as Ueda's, often feature dapper men, carefully arranged by the photographer against the familiar backdrop of the Tottori sand dunes.
[9] Ueda wondered what images could be produced if he used this outdated method with the latest, most technologically advanced state-of-the-art color film of the time, FujiColor F-II.
[10] Ueda appears to revel in creating rich contrasts of hue, as in the case of several still lives: pomegranates and cherries are presented against an inky, seemingly infinite blue-black background.