Asako Shimazaki was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1984, Shimazaki left Japan and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and in 1991 completed her BFA in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Shimazaki exhibits her work in both the US and Japan, and is represented in the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In Ayu no Kaze, published by TBW Books in 2019, Shimazaki returns to the scenery of Japan, with pictures that “grab us by their distinctive and particular vision and persuade us that what this photographer saw was both marvelous and true” (Sandra S. Phillips, 2018). Most recently, Shimazaki’s photography has been published by Drop Leaf Press in a curated poetic narrative, All of It, Tinged, with author Diana Fisher.
Notable among Shimazaki’s collections are Marcus’ Single Digits, a series documenting the first ten years of her son’s life, and Untitled, an intimate and moving glimpse into a family in mourning. Shimazaki’s work, through spontaneous and intimate portraits and shifting cityscapes and landscapes, seeks to capture light.
Shimazaki lives in San Francisco and has taught at a Montessori preschool since 1998.