Born in Kanda (Tokyo) on 2 August 1939, Kubota studied politics at Waseda University, graduating in 1962.[1] In 1961 he met the Magnum photographers René Burri, Elliott Erwitt, and Burt Glinn.He then studied journalism and international politics at the University of Chicago, and became an assistant to Erwitt and Cornell Capa, in 1965, a freelance photographer.
Kubota photographed the 1968 US presidential election and then Ryūkyū islands before their return to Japan in 1972. He then photographed Saigon in 1975, North Korea in 1978, and China in 1979–85, and the USA in 1988–92, resulting in books and exhibitions
Kubota won the Mainichi Art Prize in 1980,[ and the Annual Award of the Photographic Society of Japan in 1981.[3] Three of his publications won him the first Kodansha Publishing Culture Award in 1970: "Black People", and essays on Calcutta and the Ryūkyū
islands.
