No object is too ordinary or random to end up being used as a
stand-in for a full-scale building, boat, landscape or prop in
art director and photographer Tatsuya Tanaka’s imaginative
miniature landscapes, released each and every day on an online
calendar. There’s a donut island, a record player as a
lake, a literal sushi train, tiny European houses made of clips
and dice, disposable razor ski lifts, brush bristle fields and
even a cracked iPhone standing in for a hole in an icy lake.
With thousands of these brilliant photographs under his belt,
Tanaka has amassed a following
of no less than one million on Instagram. His work is so
consistently clever and surprising, you might find yourself
opening the app first thing in the morning wondering what in
the world he possibly could have thought up this time. The
little scenes will make you look at everyday objects in a whole
new way.
“Everyone must have had thoughts like these before: broccoli
and parsley may sometimeslook like a forest of trees, and tree
leaves floating on the surface of water may sometimes look like
little boats. Everyday occurrences seen from a miniature
perspective can bring us lots of fun thoughts. I wanted to take
this way of thinking and express it through photographs, so I
started to put together a ‘MINIATURE CALENDAR,’” says Tanaka.
“These photographs primarily depict diorama-style figures
surrounded by daily necessities. Just like a standard daily
calendar, the photos are updated daily on my website and SNS
page, earning it the name of ‘MINIATURE CALENDAR.’ It would be
great if you could use it to add a little enjoyment to your
everyday life.”
