Photo/Illutration Takeyoshi Tanuma in 2011 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A slim booklet, priced at 667 yen ($5.13), was what Takeyoshi Tanuma, a leading Japanese photographer, showed me with genuine delight. It was filled with pictures of children with lively smiles.

"This was the kind of photobook I wanted to make, not something expensive with a fancy binding," he said with a big grin.

Throughout his life, Tanuma continued to photograph children's faces. There were young Somali boys playing in the ruins and an Indonesian girl who'd survived a tsunami.

He vividly captured the eyes of youngsters, brimming with curiosity even under the most extreme circumstances.

The source of his inspiration lay in the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945, when he saw the charred remains of an infant near his home in the capital's Asakusa district.

The body "stood" in a fire water tank. The child's mother must have placed it there to shield it from the heat of the flames.

The youngster's face looked angelic, Tanuma recalled, reminding him of a "jizo" Buddhist statue of a guardian deity of children.

When Tanuma signed a contract with Life magazine in the United States, he was assigned to cover the Vietnam War. This was his chance to make his name as a photojournalist, but he refused, insisting that the last thing he wanted was to take pictures of battlegrounds.

"I'd seen more corpses in air raids than I could stand," he recalled. "I just could not bring myself to photograph the horrors of war."

He told me these thoughts when I interviewed him in the spring three years ago.

He went on to reminisce about wanting so badly to buy a Leica, which cost 16 times his monthly salary, he ruthlessly slashed his living expenses and got teased by his friends who said, "Tanu-chan's hobby is to be stingy and save money."

And there was the time he mortgaged his home to raise funds for a trip to photograph the Andes in South America.

Listening to him talk about his life that remained unclouded by greed, I forgot the passing of time.

Upon learning of the passing of this "eternal photo geek" on June 1 at age 93, I reread the 667-yen booklet.

Titled "Jizo-sama to Watashi" (Jizo deity and I), it recounted, in simple words that children can understand, Tanuma's memories of the charred infant-turned-jizo he saw in the burnt-out city.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 3

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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