Fukase Masahisa's grandfather opened a photographic studio in Bifuka-cho, Hokkaido, and as a child, he had assisted his father, who had inherited the family business. Instead of taking over the studio, Fukase moved to Tokyo and worked as a photographer for an advertising agency. In 1971, he began to make regular trips back to Hokkaido to visit his family, and while there, he started to make a series of family portraits. His wife Yokho, the subject of much of his work, only appears in the first picture; subsequently, several different actresses and models appear in a state of undress. Fukase stopped making these family photographs in 1975 and divorced Yokho the following year. During one of these trips to Hokkaido, Fukase began his most well-known series, Karasu [Ravens]. In 1985, he returned to Bifuka and resumed taking the family photographs. The series came to an end with the death of his father and the sale of the studio. In 1992, the year following the publication of Kazoku / Family, Fukase fell down a flight of stairs in a Shinjuku bar and suffered severe brain damage, which incapacitated him and left him completely unaware of his growing reputation and significant contribution to photography. Fukase died in 2012.

First edition; folio (416 x 295 mm, 16½ x 11½ in); black-and-white photographs, minor spotting to edges; bronze paper-covered boards, titles stamped in black on spine and front and on front in blind, publisher's black card slipcase with an iridescent white printed label wrapped around spine, rubbed with wear to extremities, impression marks to and a stain to sides, short splits at foot, fine in a very good slipcase; [76]pp.