Hiromi Tsuchida

Tsuchida studied engineering before enrolling in the Tokyo College of Photography in 1965 where he was later to return as a professor. He began his career as a publicity photographer but quickly decided to become a freelance photographer. Tsuchida began to receive recognition for his work early in his career and was included in the 1974 exhibition New Japanese Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2007 a retrospective of Tsuchida's work, Tsuchida Hiromi's Nippon was shown at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Zokushin, Tsuchida's first publication and perhaps his best-known work, was taken during the early 1970s throughout rural Japan. He used the term ‘Zokushin', which translates as ‘Gods of the Earth', to refer to people who live simply, spontaneously, little concerned with what others think or how they themselves look or dress - the ‘ordinary' people of Japan. The series explores their relationship with traditional festivals, rituals and particularly with spirituality and religion. Tsuchida further developed his study of the Japanese people with his series Counting Grains of Sand and New - Counting Grains of Sand.