TOKIWA Toyoko

TOKIWA Toyoko 常盤 とよ子 (1930.1.15-) Yokohama, Kanagawa Pref. Prominent woman photographer.

Graduated Tokyo Kasei Gakuin in 1951.

From 1955, started photographing women in the red-light district in Yokohama.

Produced TV series on working women from 1962 to 1965. Joined the art screening committee for Kanagawa Pref. in 1967. Traveled to Malaysia and Taiwan 1975-80.

From 1985, took up the elderly. Became an instructor at the Fujisawa Culture Center in 1987.

Her most famous photos are the ones showing a burly black U.S. serviceman trying drag a Japanese woman to a hotel in the red-light district.