Kobayashi had a solo exhibition "Landscapes" at Gallery Eye-Heart, Tokyo in 1982, showing a series of landscapes taken in the urban marginal area, often developed for housing or a new city development. In 1986 he published Landscape, was awarded the award for new photographers by the Photographic Society of Japan in 1987. First Light won the Kimura Ihei Award for photography in 1993.
Kobayashi's photographs were exhibited with those by Yūji Saiga, Naoya Hatakeyama and Toshio Yamane in an exhibition, Land of Paradox, that travelled around the US in 1996–97.[2]
Publications
Ashiya City Museum of Art and History (芦屋市立美術館, Ashiya-shi Bijutsukan). Rando obu paradokkusuランド・オブ・パラドックス) / Land of Paradox. Kyoto: Tankōsha, 1997. ISBN4-473-01549-1.
Fuku, Noriko, ed. Land of paradox: Yuji Saiga, Naoya Hatakeyama, Norio Kobayashi, Toshio Yamane. Daytona Beach, Fla: Daytona Beach Community College, 1996. ISBN1-887040-16-1. Catalogue of the exhibition as held in the US.
Last Home, Camera Works Tokyo No.10. 1983.
Randosukēpu (ランドスケープ) / Japanese Landscapes. Tokyo: Ark One, 1986.
Saishū (彩集). Tama, Tokyo: Tama City, 1991. The photographs are by Kobayashi.
Fāsuto raito (ファ-スト・ライト) / First Light: Japanese Landscape. Tokyo: Atelier Peyotl, 1992. ISBN4-89342-181-6.
^ ab"Biography". Official website. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
^Specifically, to Photographic Resource Center, Boston; Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco; Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach; Halsey Gallery, College of Charleston; Chrysler Museum, Norfolk. Janet Koplos, "Through a Japanese Viewfinder", Art in America, 1 March 1997. A review of the exhibition Land of Paradox.