Career
Born in 1931 in Tosa, Kōchi Prefecture, Inoue became the first apprentice to Takeji Iwamiya in Osaka in 1951. While continuing to work with Iwamiya in 1954 he started work as temporary cameraman for Asahi Broadcasting Corporation in Osaka. Iwamiya recognized his talent and from 1958 encouraged the young Inoue to roam the streets of Kamagasaki in Nishinari-ku, Osaka, permitting him to develop his private work in the studio darkroom.
During the 1950s Inoue developed a reputation as a young documentary photographer.
In 1959 he was a prizewinner in the Fuji Photo Film Contest Professional Section. In 1959 Daidō Moriyama joined Iwamiya"s studio before moving to Tokyo in 1961.
Moriyama credits Inoue with setting him on the road to photography and as being highly influential in developing his photographic style. Writing for Inoue"s Retrospective exhibition in 2005, Moriyama wrote: "his words - "You coming, Mori?" - calling me to accompany him to Kamagasaki set me on the road to becoming a photographer" and "without the pioneering Inoue I would not have set out upon the long road of photography that I have followed".
Following his work in Kamagasaki, Inoue photographed ethnic Koreans emigrating from Japan to North of Korea and the festivals and city of Kyoto, among other subjects.
He was engaged in photographing daily life on the Amami Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture when he met an accidental death in Tokunoshima in 1988.
