Tadahiko Hayashi - Youth and Early Career

Youth and Early Career

Hayashi was born in Saiwai-chō, Tokuyama (since 2003 part of Shūnan), Yamaguchi (Japan) on 5 March 1918, to a family running a photographic studio (Hayashi Shashin-kan, 林写真館). The boy's mother, Ishi Hayashi (林イシ, Hayashi Ishi) was an accomplished photographer, particularly of portraits, taught by her father; his father, Shin'ichi Hayashi (林真一, Hayashi Shin'ichi) was a mediocre photographer and a spendthrift; the boy's grandfather forced the parents to divorce and the boy grew up with his mother and surrounded by photography. He did well at school, where he took photographs.

Hayashi graduated from school in 1935, and his mother determined that he would apprentice himself to the photographer Shōichi Nakayama (中山正一, Nakayama Shōichi). Nakayama was based in Ashiya, Hyōgo, but had a second studio in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. Hayashi did much running of errands between the two. On one occasion he passed the Ashiya studio of the photographer Iwata Nakayama late at night and was reinspired in photography by his realization of the effort Nakayama was putting in. A year later he contracted tuberculosis and returned to Tokuyama, where he enthusiastically practiced photography while recuperating, and participated in the group Neko-no-me-kai (猫の眼会, “Cat's-Eye Group”) under the photographer Sakae Tamura using the name Jōmin Hayashi (林城民, Hayashi Jōmin).

In 1937 Hayashi went to Tokyo, where he studied at the Oriental School of Photography (オリエンタル写真学校, Orientaru Shashin Gakkō), again under Tamura. On his graduation the following year, he returned to Tokuyama, but “spent a year in dissipation, drinking heavily every night”. Yet he managed to retain his interest and prowess in photography. In 1939 his family decided to make a final allowance to him of ¥200, which he quickly wasted in Tokyo on food and drink. Tamura got him a job in a developing and printing firm in Yokohama, where he worked at both printmaking and commercial photography. A few months later he moved to Tōkyō Kōgeisha (東京光芸社) in Ginza, where he soon had an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate his unusual command, gained in Yokohama, of flash illumination. Demand for his services increased. He married Akiko Sasaki (佐々木秋子, Sasaki Akiko), from Tokuyama.

In 1940 Hayashi's photographs appeared in the photography magazine Shashin Shūhō, and the next year also the women's magazine Fujin Kōron, and Asahi Camera. The couple had their first child, a son, Yasuhiko (靖彦).

In 1942 Hayashi went to the Japanese embassy in Beijing, with the North China News Photography Association (華北広報写真協会, Kahoku Kōhō-shashin Kyōkai), which he had just cofounded. While in China he did a lot of work with what was then regarded as a wide-angle lens; this led to his nickname of Waido no Chū-san (ワイドの忠さん, “wide Mr Chū”).

Hayashi's photographs were published in the women's magazines Fujin Kōron and Shinjoen and the photography magazines Shashin Bunka and Shashin Shūhō. The couple had their second son, Jun (潤), in 1943.