Masao Yamamoto is a Japanese photographer, born in 1957 in Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture. He studied oil painting under Goro Saito in his home city before choosing photography, and the gelatin silver print, as his medium. He lives in Yatsugatake Nanroku in Yamanashi Prefecture, close to nature.
He is best known for small, hand-worked gelatin silver prints of nature, birds, flowers and the body, which he treats as objects and often shows as installations. His books include Omizuao (2003), é (2005) and Fujisan (2008) with Nazraeli Press, KAWA=Flow (Kochuten Books, 2011) and Tori (Radius Books, 2016). With the musician and clavichord builder Akira Uchida he made the IIKKI trilogy Sasanami (2020), Kurayami (2023) and Nusa (2026).
His work has been shown in Japan, the United States, Europe, Russia and Brazil, and is in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
