Kenro Izu

Kenro Izu (井津 建郎, Izu Kenrō, 1949, Osaka, Japan) is a worldwide acclaimed photographer who published two books on Angkor, Light Over Ancient Angkor (Friends Without A Border, 1996, with all proceeds donated to the association he founded) and Passage to Angkor (id., 2006, with poems by Helen Ibbitson Jessup).

Since 1979, he has added to his commercial photography portfolio fine art photography work, documenting sacred ancient stone monuments in their natural settings. He traveled and documented Egypt, Syria, Jordan, England, Scotland, Mexico, France and Easter Island (Chile), with a focus on Buddhism and Hindu monuments in South East Asia: Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and India.

In 1995, Izu founded Friends Without a Border, a charity organization devoted to raising funds for children’s hospitals around Southeast Asia, with the Angkor Hospital for Children (ACH) opening in Siem Reap in 1999. In 2007, Izu was awarded the Pacesetter Award from New York Hospital Queens. That same year, he was the recipient of the Honorary Visionary Award by the Lucie Awards.