Eikoh Hosoe was born in Yonezawa (northern Honshu) in 1933. He graduated from Tokyo College of Photography in 1954 and became a freelance photographer. In 1959, Hosoe was one of the founders of the photographers' group VIVO, a cooperative agency that shared a darkroom and distributed members' work. His first book was Otoko to Onna - Man and Woman (1961), but it was the following project, with the great Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Barakei - Killed by Roses (1963) (later re-titled Ordeal by Roses), that achieved worldwide fame. He formed a close friendship with Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, culminating in the work Kamaitachi (1969). Hosoe has been honored with many awards, including the New Artist Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association (1960) and Photographer of the Year Award from the same association (1963). In 1975, he returned to his alma mater as professor of photography at the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics and is currently director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Art.