Background
Takayama was born in Tokyo, Japan.
高山 正隆
Takayama was born in Tokyo, Japan.
He remained an active photographer even after World World War World War II He was talented at pictorialist (art) photography and took many photographs using a soft focus lens and deformation and "wipe-out" techniques. Takayama usually used a "vest-pocket" Kodak camera (a very compact folding model taking 127 film) with a single-element lens (a tangyoku lens in Japanese). These cameras (and Japanese derivatives such as the Rokuoh-sha Pearlette and Minolta Vest) were popular in Japan at the time for snapshot use, and called ves-tan (ベス単, in Japanese pronunciation besutan) cameras.
"ves" coming from "vest" and "tan" from tangyoku.
Takayama"s works are thus said to belong to the "ves-tan" (besutan) school.