Kijima was born in Calexico,[1][citation needed] California on 24 December 1920, the son of a Mr Watanabe,[2] a shoe manufacturer who had immigrated in 1905, and his wife Sei (せい).
Although his elder brother was teaching Japanese to the US Navy and his father was incarcerated in a relocation camp in California (where he would become ill and die),[4] Kijima joined the naval air corps, in a kamikaze unit.
His photographing of nude women directly in front of Sakurada gate of the imperial palace in central Tokyo very early one morning in 1958 caused a great moral panic.
His 1958 exhibition, titled "Ra" (裸), of nude photographs was the second held in Japan (the first was by Kira Sugiyama); more than thirty thousand people came to see it.
[8] Kijima gradually turned toward photographing traditional Japanese arts and nature and particularly flowers, with entire books about cherry blossoms and orchids.