Shomei Tomatsu As a teenager,lay awake as the Allies bombed his hometown of Nagoya, Japan. World War II, and its immediate aftermath, deeply affected the photographer. The American occupation, Surrealism, protest, and sexual liberation all entered Tomatsu’s visual language as he photographed American soldiers along Okinawa streets, wounded Japanese citizens, and prostitutes in Tokyo.

“Tomatsu makes us aware of the difficulty of seeing and of understanding what we see,” writes Juan Vicente Aliaga in the new book Shomei Tomatsu, published by Fundación MAPFRE. “Apart from people and their actions, there are also objects, things, which are prolongations of individual people.” Indeed, a picture of an actress is also about the flag that hangs above her head, while one of a man and a woman on a Tokyo subway also focuses on the window and whatever lies, unseen, outside their car.



