An Empty Tokyo Captured Through Masataka Nakano’s Lens

If there were ever a photographer accustomed to the sight of a deserted Tokyo, it would be Masataka Nakano. Throughout the 1990s, he focused on photographing empty places in the capital for his series TOKYO NOBODY. His use of a camera with a wide angle 8×10 lens lends his photographs an infinite quality and a sense of timelessness. No district went unphotographed, and he even managed to capture some fleeting shots amidst the chaos of places like Shibuya and Shinjuku.

Tokyo as a muse

Masataka Nakano was born in 1955 in Fukuoka and grew up in Tokyo, before becoming a professional photographer in his thirties and working on advertising campaigns at a large number of magazines. TOKYO NOBODY is his first series to be published (by Little More, in 2000). It was thanks to this series that he won the Newcomer’s Award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 2001. Other series followed over that decade, all with the capital as their subject, including TOKYO WINDOWS (published in 2004) and TOKYO FLOAT (2008), notably exhibited at the gallery ART UNLIMITED.

TOKYO NOBODY (2000), a book by Masataka Nakano is published by Little More.