Masahisa Fukase died last week

Fukase was born on 25 February 1934 in Hokkaido. Among Fukase's early works was the Kill the Pigs (1961) concerning a slaughterhouse. Fukase's photographs of his family and his bride, received considerable attention in numerous exhibitions and magazines; these were collected in his second book, published in 1978. The last book that he supervised, Karasu (Ravens), was shot in in 1976 in Hokkaido in the wake of his divorce, and was published in 1986. The gloomy and emotional photos are a sharp contrast to his earlier works.
In 2010, a panel of five experts, including photographer Chis Killip and the writer Gerry Badger, convened by the British Journal of Photography selected Karasu as the best photobook published between 1986 and 2009. In 1992, Fukase suffered traumatic brain injury from a fall, and remained in a coma. He died on 9 June 2012.

You can read Sean O'Hagan's piece in the Guardian, Masahisa Fukase's Ravens: the best photobook of the past 25 years? HERE