Untitled, from the series Eros, Tokyo, 1969

Shōmei Tōmatsu (1930 –2012) was a Japanese photographer born in Nagoya in 1930,. He studied economics at Aichi University, and while still a student, he had his photographs published by the major Japanese photography magazines. He entered Iwanami (a Japanese publishing company) and worked on the series Iwanami Shashin Bunko. Two years later, he left in order to freelance.

In 1959, Tōmatsu formed Vivo (the photography cooperative where the members worked to confront and showcase the changes that were taking place in modern Japanese society) with Eikoh Hosoe and Ikkō Narahara. Two years later, his and Ken Domon's book Hiroshima–Nagasaki Document 1961, on the effects of the atomic bombs, was published to great acclaim. In 1972, he moved to Okinawa; in 1975, his prizewinning book of photographs of Okinawa, Pencil of the Sun was published.