What if there was a world that could fit in your pocket?
These artists have also asked “What if…”
“Broccoli and parsley might sometimes look like a forest, or the tree leaves floating on the surface of the water might sometimes look like little boats,” Japanese miniature artist Tatsuya Tanaka says. “I wanted to take this way of thinking and express it through photographs.” From that starting point of broccoli, Tanaka has been making a daily scene of life in miniature for the past ten years.
It’s that one thought, about the broccoli trees (c’mon, you’ve thought it, too!), that Tanaka credits for a seemingly unending ability to create and imagine. (Apparently, he did not even like broccoli, but Tanaka started eating it after it jump-started his career. And now his kids eat it, too.)
Tanaka uses stuff you’d find around the house, like fruit and veggies, utensils, office supplies, medicine cabinet essentials, and so much more to create his scenes. When he sees these things, he doesn’t see them for what they are. He sees them for what they could be… for mini people. And, thus, unrolled toilet paper becomes a ski slope, a computer mouse becomes a race car, piano keys become a crosswalk, a banana becomes a hammock, and a red paper clip becomes the red-hot heating element of an electric grill. Just add tiny figurines. And don’t stir. Or breathe. Because everything must stay in place!
Widely known as the world’s first “miniature photographer,” Tanaka had a longtime serious hobby of collecting mini figures. (Umm, he has about 50,000 of them, actually. Good thing he turned this into a job, right?) He also loved making plastic dioramas. And he has a degree in art. But, really, his work is about having a completely unique and “unrestrained perspective” of the world.
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