[3] His father, Chobun Yonezo Okamoto, was a wealthy exporter, book publisher and real estate businessman who came from Japan to the United States in 1904.

[4] He attended Roosevelt High School and Colgate University and served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

[6] In 1955 curator Edward Steichen chose Okamoto's United States Information Service photograph of Harald Kreutzberg for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man that was seen by 9 million visitors.

[10] In 1961, Okamoto was invited to accompany then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson on a trip of Berlin as his official photographer.

[4] The 1990 coffee table book LBJ: The White House Years[5] by Harry Middleton consists primarily of images taken by Okamoto.