Photo/Illutration Takeyoshi Tanuma, right, with UNICEF Ambassador Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, visit Sudan in 2013. (Provided by Takeyoshi Tanuma)

Famed photographer Takeyoshi Tanuma, known for his UNICEF work in taking photos of children throughout the world, fittingly died on June 1, which is designated "Photography Day" by the Photographic Society of Japan.

He was 93. Tanuma, a recipient of the Order of Culture, died at his Tokyo home.

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, who was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1984 and has traveled to many corners of the world with Tanuma on UNICEF tours every year, mourned his loss.

“In terms of photographing children, he was the number one in the world,” she said in a statement on June 2. 

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Takeyoshi Tanuma, a famed photographer, in October 2019 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Kuroyanagi said every time she returned to Japan from the tours, she saw the pictures Tanuma took during their travels.

“Then I understood how these children extended their hands to me and realized the eyes of starving children looked dry so much,” she recalled.

Kuroyanagi said the two talked about going on a UNICEF tour this fall.

Although it will not happen, she said the memory of their past tours will remain with her.

“I can almost see him talking to children and taking their pictures with three cameras hanging from his neck in the hot weather,” Kuroyanagi said.

Tanuma was born in Tokyo’s Asakusa district to a family running a photography studio.

He studied under Ihei Kimura, a famed photographer.

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Takeyoshi Tanuma takes pictures of children in the Republic of Niger in 1985. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Capturing the times through children in the world became Tanuma’s lifetime work.

He said the root of such motivation was a burnt infant he witnessed when fleeing in the Great Tokyo Air Raid on March 10, 1945.

Through the lens, Tanuma expressed his strong resentment toward wars and empathy and encouragement toward oppressed children.

Tanuma’s wife, Atsuko, 68, said the photographer “was a stubborn person.”

“But he has always tried to be in line with the times, learning how to use the latest digital cameras and traveling far to see the works of young photographers,” she said.

(This article was compiled from reports by Nanako Matsuzawa and Hiroshi Katsumata.)

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