Suda Issei was born in Tokyo in 1940 and graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography. From 1971 onwards, he returned to freelance photography, contributing to Asahi Camera, Camera Mainichi, Nippon Camera, Camerart, and other publications. He won the New Artist award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 1976, the annual award from the same society in 1983, and the Domon Ken Prize in 1997. He operated the Hiranagacho-bashi Gallery in Tokyo between 1991 and 1997. Suda participated in the Neue Fotografie aus Japan exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Graz, Austria, and in Japan: A Self Portrait at the International Centre of Photography, New York (1979). His works can be found in the public collections of the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics Tokyo; the Museum fu-Nr Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; the Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum; the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; the Higashikawa Culture Gallery in Hokkaido; the Princeton University Art Museum; the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona; the Osaka University of Art; the Miyagi Prefectural Art Museum; and the Paris Museum of Photography.