BIOGRAPHY

TATSUSHI TAHARA

Tatsushi Tahara is a distinguished Japanese photographer acclaimed for his evocative analog black and white photography capturing the timeless essence of European and Japanese landscapes, cities, and abandoned places.

After growing up in Tokyo, Tahara moved to New York at the age of eighteen, to study at the Art Students League, fulfilling his passion for visual arts and a desire to immerse himself in the vibrant culture of the city. He pursued painting and printmaking in his earlier years. In the early 1990’s, he started taking analog photographs while continuing his painting. At the turn of the century, by now fascinated by black and white imagery, natural lighting, and film texture, he shot experimental short films in 16mm for more than a decade. A few titles were featured in various film festivals in the U.S., Canada, and France. Since then, he has focused on black and white analog photography in medium format and sometimes 35mm. His prints capture oneiric scenes and dilapidated structures which are inspired by 19th century European paintings. He is particularly inspired by French photographers like Eugène Atget and Charles Marville.

In addition to his photographic pursuits, Tahara is a master craftsman working exclusively with private clients on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. His career in woodworking may have contributed to his appreciation for the texture and detail of material in his images.

His work is meticulous with a profound ability to convey silent stories embedded in urban and natural environments. The haunting beauty of neglected structures, the forlorn landscapes and textured cityscapes in Tahara’s photography evoke a dreamlike perspective of a bygone world.

About my photos

Most of my photographic images came to me by chance, like random encounters. Of course, in seeking out certain abandoned places, I had some vague ideas of what I could expect. I chose places with dilapidated and neglected structures because they imbue a timelessness mixed with a nostalgia of the past. In my early years of painting, I especially loved the 19th century European paintings of masters who painted landscapes with ruins. My experience of photography in those places often evokes dreamlike visions.

I question places while I frame and photograph. I get the impression, “Haven’t I been here before?” The act of taking pictures sometimes becomes an affirmation of my subconscious visions. If the subject is not a ruin, I can still find hypnotic visuals from reflections of ordinary objects or variations of light in banal landscapes. There is also something in analog photography that transforms what we see in daily life, making it closer to the picture I want to see and share in a freer sense.