Kei Ono Photo Collection – Portrait for Me

This book is the third in a series of photo collections, following “Blue Light” (2006) and “NEW TEXT” (2013), and serves as the culmination of photographer Kei Ono’s portrait series featuring high school students across Japan since 2002.

Ono began this series because he believes that the high school years are a unique period during which individuals intensely contemplate and struggle with their identity, embodying the essence of being human. Through photographing these students, he hoped to inch closer to answering the profound question, “What is it to be human?”

He recruited subjects via the web and social media, responding to high school students nationwide who wished to have their portraits taken. Ono traveled across Japan, communicating with the students beforehand to understand their motivations and desired locations for the shoot. This process of engagement and photography continued for over 20 years without interruption until the series was abruptly halted in 2020 by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Unable to meet people, a fundamental aspect of portrait photography, Ono faced a crisis that made him contemplate quitting photography altogether. However, it was high school students who reignited his passion for the craft. Witnessing how students, among the hardest hit by the pandemic, lost not only their school life but many opportunities, Ono felt compelled to resume his work. He believed that capturing their portraits at such a time could be meaningful to someone, somewhere.

With the easing of restrictions in 2022, Ono dedicated about five months to photographing high school students who had experienced the pandemic, thereby completing the series. By capturing the irreplaceable “portraits” of each student and the “backgrounds” behind them, Ono aimed to document and capture the changing “landscape of Japan.” This series, therefore, serves not only as a portrait collection for these students but also as a portrait of an era.