He was born in Ehime in 1935. After graduated Nihon University College of Art Photography, he worked as a producer of the literary department at Nippon Broadcasting System, Inc. and is now a Freelance photographer. Anthology: "Alps", "Himalaya", "The American Continent", "The Biblical World" trilogy, "The Continent of China" in 2 volumes, "The Original Scenery of Gods", "Buddhism Introduction" in 3 volumes, "The Antarctic Continent" in 2 volumes, "The World 100 Great Mountains", in 3 volumes, "The World 100 Great Waterfalls" in 3 volumes. Photographic collection: "Yoshikazu Shirakawa Complete Mountain Photographic Works" in 6 volumes, "The World of Yoshikazu Shirakawa" etc. Pay large photograph exhibition with more than 200m-long total length of a wall surface was held 113 times out of 135 times that he held his individual show (only in Japan). During that time, it was under the sponsorship of the public organization such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and so on over 53 times. In 1993, he succeeded in traveling around the Antarctic Continent for the first time in the history of humankind. In 2002, the United Nations issued the commemorative stamps in honor of "The International Y ear of Mountains." Producing the all 12 kinds of the commemorative stamps by one writer is the 11th person in the world following Vermeer, Dali, Picasso, etc, and the first for photography.

He received the 13th Mainichi Art Prize and the 22nd Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize in 1972, American Society of Media Photographers - PHOTPGRAPHER OF THE YEAR in 1981 (the 11th person in the history of photograph), the 36th Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1988, the 27th Grand Prize of Japan in 1995, and Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1999. Now, the shooting "Forever Japan" which started in 2008 has been in progress. There is expected to be an announcement in his anthology and at photograph exhibition at the end of 2012.

※The 4 Art Prizes representing Japan are The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize, Mainichi Art Prize, Kikuchi Kan Prize, Grand Prize of Japan. Mr. Yoshikazu Shirakawa is the only person who received those all 4 prizes through all expression fields of Literature, Art, Music, and so on including Architecture. It was because all of his 10 works of "Recovery of Humanity through Rediscovery of the Earth" labeled as a series stretching over a period of 40 years from "Alps" released in 1969 to "The World 100 Great Waterfalls" were unprecedented jobs. There are few winners who received 3 prizes out of 4 prizes; the late Ikuo Hirayama, a Japanese-style painter is one of them. (as of March 10, 2011)