Kazuyoshi Nomachi was born in 1946 in Kochi Prefecture, Japan.
In 1971 he began his freelance career as an advertising photographer. He turned to photojournalism the following year, at age 25, in the course of his first encounter with the Sahara Desert.
After two years spent photographing the desert, he followed the Nile River from mouth to source and then travelled through Ethiopia, his photographs capturing North Africa's harsh environment and the men and women who live in it.

From 1988 he turned his attention to Asia. Repeated trips to Tibet produced photographs depicting the religious faith and daily lives of people living at extremely high altitudes.

Converting to Islam in order to gain access to Islam's holiest cities, he travelled to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of a Saudi publisher and spent five years photographing the great annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.

The photographs that resulted appeared in leading publications around the world, including National Geographic, Stern and GEO.
He has published 12 photographic anthologies in various countries. His work has won numerous prizes, among them the Annual Award of the Photographic Society of Japan in 1990 and 1997.