Papa, Mama, and their Children

Ueda Shoji was born and spent his life in Sakaiminato, located at the tip of the Yumigahama Peninsula, with an expansive sky and sea. With the nearby sandy beach as a stage, Ueda arranged himself and his family like objects, using the curtain of the white sky in hazy spring weather as a background. This is a modern style that leverages blank space to maximum effect. It is the masterpiece of Ueda's Sakyû-gunzô Enshutsu (Sand Dune Directed Group) photographs, in which he photographed a happy family circle as if in a fairytale.