Toyoko Tokiwa

[n 2]) Her family ran a liquor wholesaler at Kanagawa-dōri 4-chōme in Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama, where she lived until the building was burnt down in the American firebombing of 29 May 1945, an event in which her father sustained fatal burns.

Despite an initial hatred of the American military, prompted in particular by her father's death, and revulsion at prostitution, she simply invited herself into the akasen (red-light area) of Yokohama, asked the girls whether she might photograph, and was accepted.

[5] Tokiwa would later marry an amateur photographer, Taikō Okumura [Wikidata] (奥村泰宏, 1914–1995)[7][8] – whose photography of postwar Japan appears with hers in a 1996 book – and work as both housewife and photojournalist.

[4][10] In 1956 Tokiwa held an exhibition titled Hataraku Josei (働く女性, Working women) at the Konishiroku Photo Gallery (Tokyo) that won high acclaim.

[3] In 1957, her book Kiken na Adabana (危険な毒花, literally "Dangerous Toxic/Fruitless Flowers"),[n 3] was published by Mikasa Shobō.

[3] Tokiwa photographed around US military bases in Yokosuka (1958) and the Ryūkyū islands (1960), the Soviet Union (1974, and Taiwan and Malaysia (1975–80).