Shinnosuke Futagami (born 1977) is a Japanese photographer and writer from Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture. After working on advertising articles, he became an independent photographer, focusing on Hokkaido’s brown bears and people whose livelihoods are tied to the natural world, including fishermen. His photographic children’s book “Mori to Kawa, Yama to Umi: Higuma no Tabi” follows brown bears as they move between forests, rivers, the coast, and mountains in search of food; it also introduces their parenting and encounters with people. “Umareta yo! Sake” documents the birth of salmon, showing newly hatched fish growing with a nutrient-filled sac attached to their bodies. Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, “Nihon no Kuma o Ou” follows brown bears in Hokkaido and Asian black bears on Japan’s main island. Through their changing food sources and encounters with people, Futagami examines how humans can act responsibly in places where bears live.
