(born Fukui Prefecture, 1939)
Tsuchida initially trained as an engineer at Fukui University, then graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography in 1966. He started his career shooting advertisements for a cosmetics company before becoming a freelance photographer. Influenced by the work of Domon Ken and Tomatsu Shomei, he produced several series on postwar Hiroshima and daily life throughout Japan. His best-known series, Zokushin (Gods of the Earth), taken from 1969 to 1975, examined rituals and festivals outside the modern urban centers. From 1976 to 1989 and from 1995 to 2004, Tsuchida produced the series Suna wo kazoeru (Counting Grains of Sand) and Shin suna wo kazoeru (New Counting Grains of Sand), comprising images of crowds taken in and around Tokyo.
Tsuchida was among the first postwar Japanese photographers to gain exposure internationally: his work was included in the exhibitions ;New Japanese Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (1974) and Japan: A Self Portrait at New York’s International Center of Photography (1979). For over thirty years, he has photographed Japan and beyond, creating additional series on Hiroshima and Tokyo as well as Berlin and Jerusalem. From 2000 to 2012, he taught at Osaka University.
