People often ask Yoshihiko Ueda why he became a photographer. He replies that he has no clear memory of the beginning. "Perhaps it was almost coincidental," he said. His wife offers the explanation that his sister gave him a camera to console him when he was disappointed at failing boyhood examinations. She believes that he had never been interested in any form of art up until then. But that first camera pointed him in the direction he should go.
Ueda was born into a Hyogo farming family. He considered becoming a lawyer, but instead, with his camera, entered a college for photography in Osaka. He studied with famous teachers, and served a short apprenticeship of only a few years before he set up the Yoshihiko Ueda Studio in Tokyo. That was in 1982, when he was 25.
As with all artists, Ueda had to come to terms with photography for its commercial value, and photography as his artistic expression. For him, the resolution was simple.