Photo/Illutration Takeyoshi Tanuma with Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, in Sudan in 2013 (Provided by Takeyoshi Tanuma)

Probably because I deal with somber news all the time as a newspaper reporter, it does my heart good when I come across a photo of a beaming child by chance.

When that happens, I check the name of the photographer. On several occasions, it turned out to be Takeyoshi Tanuma (1929-2022).

One of his pictures showed a group of barefooted Malawi children in Africa racing a car right after they were let out of school for the day. I could even imagine hearing their joyful squeals.

In another, a young Guatemalan boy with a distended belly appears goggle-eyed as he listens to his own heartbeat for the first time from a doctor’s stethoscope.

In his photo book titled “Bokutachi Chikyukko” (literally “We, children of the Earth”), Tanuma quotes poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941): “Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.”

Tanuma was in his mid-30s when he decided his life’s work would be to look at the world through children. After multitalented Japanese entertainer Tetsuko Kuroyanagi was appointed as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1984, Tanuma often accompanied her on her overseas visits, paying his own way.

He visited more than 120 countries and regions until his death at the age of 93.

In Lebanon, he photographed a youth holding a gun at the ready. An Afghan girl looks directly at the camera lens. With her penetrating eyes, I wonder if what she sees is the uncertain future of the world or the apathy of the international community. She makes my heart ache.

But for all the vicissitudes of life he witnessed through the camera lens, Tanuma continued to love and believe in humanity. He once stated: “People come from varying social, cultural and climatic environments, but that never stops them from living with hope. That’s what makes the human race awesome.”

A retrospective exhibition of his works titled “Viva Humanity!” (Ningen Sanka in Japanese) is currently showing at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum through July 30.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 17

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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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