Kazuyoshi Nomachi was born in Japan and began his freelance career in 1971 as an advertising photographer. He turned to photojournalism the following year upon his first encounter with the Sahara Desert. After two years spent photographing the desert, he followed the Nile River from mouth to source and then travelled through Ethiopia, his photographs capturing North Africa's harsh environment and the men and women who live in it.
From 1988 he turned his attention to Asia. Repeated trips to Tibet produced photographs depicting the religious faith and daily lives of people living at extremely high altitudes.
Nomachi converted to Islam, and as a result is one of the few Muslim converts ( the legendary Thomas Abercrombie of the National Geographic being another) given access to Islam's holiest cities. He travelled to Saudi Arabia and spent five years photographing the great annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
The photographs that resulted appeared in leading publications around the world, including National Geographic, Stern and GEO. He published 12 photographic anthologies in various countries. His work has won numerous prizes, among them the Annual Award of the Photographic Society of Japan in 1990 and 1997.
His website needs a facelift, and there are a few typos, but it adequately allows us a glimpse of his prolific work in Tibet, the Nile, the Andes, Morocco, Ethiopia, Iran, Danakil, Bolivia and Bhutan. I chose his work in Mecca to showcase on TTP.
Kazuyoshi Nomachi's Mecca
Kazuyoshi Nomachi's Home Page
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