Takuma Nakahira

Who is Takuma Nakahira?

Takuma Nakahira is a Japanese photographer and photography critic.

Born in Tokyo, Nakahira attended the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, from which he graduated in 1963 with a degree in Spanish. After graduation, he began working as an editor at the art magazine Contemporary view, during which time he published his work under the pseudonym of Akira Yuzuki. Two years later, he left the magazine in order to pursue his own career as a photographer, and he became close friends with Shōmei Tōmatsu, Shūji Terayama, and Daidō Moriyama. In 1968, the group consisting of Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Takahiko Okada, and Kōji Taki published the magazine Provoke. The following year, Provoke ceased publication, and in 1971, Nakahira exhibited his works in the 7th Paris Biennial.

Nakahira's first published photobook, For a Language to Come has been described as "a masterpiece of reductionism." Up through its publication in 1970, Nakahira had been well versed in a style in the vein of Daido Moriyama's are, bure, boke. In 1973, he published Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary, shifting away from the style of are, bure, boke and instead moving towards a type of catalog photography stripped of the sentimentality of handheld photography, a photography resembling the illustrations of reference books.