Hiroshi Sugimoto was born in 1948 in Tokyo, Japan. He has worked and lived in New York and Tokyo. He graduated from Saint Paul’s University in Tokyo in 1970 and from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles right after in 1974. Also in 1974, he moved to New York to pursue his career in photography and art.Art was a big interest early in his life. He discovered Surrealism and Dada while reading Andre Breton’s writings and also had a lifelong connection to the work and philosophy of Marcel Duchamp. The basic idea of Hiroshi’s work is that photography is a time machine and a way of picturing memory and time. He uses his camera to capture the objects’ essence and create great images. He places extraordinary value on craftsmanship and is very keen and attentive about his work. Hiroshi has won many awards and grants in his life between the years 1977 and 2018 for his exceptional work.
https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/hiroshi-sugimoto-becoming-an-artist-short/
The link for this video was filmed in his New York studio in 2011. He looks back on his student days when studying Western philosophy in Tokyo and Oriental philosophy in California. Back then he was really interested in modernism.
Down below are a few examples of his photography:
Hyena – Jackal – Vulture, 1976
Birds of the Alps (2012), Hiroshi Sugimoto © Hiroshi Sugimoto
The Brides in the Bath Murderer, 1994 
The Electric Chair, 1994 
The St. Alban’s Poisner, 1994
This set of photographs is from a a collection called the Chamber of Horrors. Hiroshi went to London in 1994 and found these murderous instruments and said they looked very real to him. So in order to capture that realness he took photos of them to keep the memory of death aware. Years later, he went back to visit again and found out that the exhibit was gone and had been removed due to a gesture of political correctness.
These last three images are from his collection of abandoned theaters.
His images seem to reflect lots of depth and stories. He always wanted to capture the memory and feeling from an object or place.
Most of these images are from the link below:
blog by: Jacquelyn Casas