Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1969.
Landscape photographer and drone pilot that travels more than 200 days a year across Japan in search of picturesque scenery. Artist whose works are part of the permanent collection of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. Continues to show works that express the delicate sense of space and transparency spawned by Japan’s natural landscapes.
Runs the “Kibo Photographers” school of photography. Member of the Japan Professional Photographers Society. Director of the Society of Scientific Photography. Teaches at the α Academy in Ginza and elsewhere.
Photo collections: “Amakazari” and “At Water’s Edge” (Aiiku), “Forest Moments” and “The Great Outdoors of Mt. Daisetsu” (Shogakukan), “Camera in the Sky” and “Nature Capital: The 4 Seasons of Tadami, Fukushima” (Heibonsha), etc.
- 2007
- Showed a large work of a natural landscape at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum for the “World Travelers” exhibition.
Served as a judge of the Photography Category at the London-based East-West Art Award 2011 - 2014.
- 2012
- Curated the “Tohoku: Landscapes, People and Life” exhibition organized by The Japan Foundation. The exhibition traveled to over 20 countries around the world with stops in New York and Beijing.
- 2015
- Staged his “Camera in the Sky” exhibition of Japanese landscapes photographed from a drone at Sony Imaging Gallery Ginza and other locations. Staged his “Nature Capital: The 4 Seasons of Tadami, Fukushima” exhibition of the Town of Tadami in Fukushima Prefecture, which he captured using an 80M Digital Back camera, at Fujifilm’s Photo Salon in various parts of Japan.
- 2016
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- Placed in charge of the drone-based aerial photography of Toyota’s 4th generation Prius for the “Cars of the Future” program on BS12.
- Placed in charge of photography used to select “Scenic Landscapes” for a monthly series published in Motor Magazine’s “Cameraman” throughout 2016.
- 2017
- Showed aerial footage captured by drone and underwater images on various episodes of Fuji Television’s “Tokudane!” program under the concept of “Scenic Landscapes in Japan”.
- April 2017
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- Staged “The Four Seasons of Japan” exhibition at HCL Photo Space Kanda.
- Showed “Images of Scenic Places in Japan Captured with the Latest Mirrorless Camera” in the open space of the Sony Store Ginza.
- March - May 2017
- Staged his “Scenic Landscapes of a Beautiful Japan” traveling exhibition at Sony Stores in Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka.
- September 21-24, 2017
- Provided photos of national parks for the Tourism Expo promoted by the Ministry of the Environment at the Tokyo Big Site.
- September 2017
- Posted works taken with a Firin 20mmF2 lens by Tokina, on the Camera Fan webpage hosted by Genkosha.
“DesignScape: New Forms of Landscapes” has been planned as a traveling exhibition for the α Gallery Space in Sony Stores in Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka and Sapporo, and other galleries.
Photo by
Photographer Meiki Lin is a forerunner in drone-commanded landscape photography. So much so, he has been covered widely in the media as the “drone cameraman”.
This exhibition of works is Lin’s second at Sony Imaging Gallery Ginza. The previous time to great reviews was in May 2015 when he staged the first exhibition in Japan of photographs taken from a drone in his “FLYING CAMERA: The Japanese Landscape Seen from a Drone”. This newest exhibition presents, in addition to photographs captured by drones, works taken on the ground.
Rather than show a single shot of each location, these works are composed of images taken from two different viewpoints because of Lin’s predilection for portraying choice landscapes in greater depth. For example, there are those that show the same location or subject from the ground and air, and those that carefully confront the subject with subtle tweaks to the composition or angle by shooting at different times of the day to play off the changes in lighting. Through this process of combining various views, Lin gives landscape photography a storyline that makes it interesting in ways never seen before.
As Lin explained, “I got into drones in 2009 because they were like ‘tripods in the sky’, though I mainly take pictures on the ground -- with a tripod. To get the images I picture in my head, I have to set up my tripod in the same place and spot several times over until the real world unfolds before me as desired. But, parallel to this, I rediscovered the value of aerial photography when reexamining how the ground looks from a drone. Since then, I have traveled to some 200 locations in Japan to take photos with this DesignScape concept. My goal has been to produce photographs of widely known places from new perspectives and unknown places in this world with a sense of freshness that I would associate with me. Because I believed it was possible, I’d visit places time and time again until the landscape was just the way I imagined it. Therefore, I am confident the works I have taken offer a thrill in ways not seen before in landscape photography.”
Come experience the wonder and depth of known and unknown landscapes across Japan through photos and movies.