Japanese: 東松 照明; born January 16, 1930, in Nagoya, Aichi; died December 14, 2012, in Naha, Okinawa, was a Japanese photographer whose thematically wide-ranging and stylistically influential work earned him international recognition in the second half of the twentieth century.

Life and Work

Initially self-taught, Tōmatsu worked from 1954 to 1956 for the photographic series Iwanami Shashin Bunko. In 1959, he co-founded the influential photography agency VIVO alongside photographers such as Eikō Hosoe, Kikuji Kawada, and Ikkō Narahara. His international reputation was established through photographs produced in response to a commission from the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. These images were published in Hiroshima–Nagasaki Document (1961, with Ken Domon) and 11:02 Nagasaki (1966). Rather than depicting the explosions directly, Tōmatsu conveyed the horror of the atomic bomb through traces left on bodies, objects, and architecture. These works are considered among the most important photographic engagements with nuclear trauma, alongside Kikuji Kawada’s Chizu (The Map).

Tōmatsu became a defining figure of his generation, both thematically and stylistically, exerting a decisive influence on later photographers such as Daidō Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira, who would form a new photographic avant-garde in Japan.

Another major focus of his work was the transformation of postwar Japan under American occupation, most notably explored in the long-running series Chewing Gum and Chocolate (1958–1980). In contrast, Tōmatsu also devoted extensive attention to the traditional culture and landscapes of Okinawa, away from U.S. military bases, culminating in the book Taiyō no empitsu (The Pencil of the Sun, 1975). He described both experiences as forms of “cultural shock.”

The aesthetic of Tōmatsu’s early black-and-white work broke with documentary conventions, relying on reduction, fragmentary details, and expressive ambiguity. His later work oscillated between dynamic, disorienting compositions—such as those documenting student protests and nightlife in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district around 1969—and meditative stillness, exemplified by the series Plastics (1987–1989), depicting washed-up debris on the Kujūkuri beach. His long-term project Intertidal Zone (later expanded as Interface) approaches near abstraction in its exploration of Japan’s rocky coastlines.

In 2002, Tōmatsu also contributed artwork to the booklet of Peter Gabriel’s album Up.

Reference

Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), German edition.
Retrieved January 19, 2026.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shōmei_Tōmatsu