Born and raised in Tokyo, Nabuyoshi Araki is a japanese photographer who is now one of the most famous modern cultural icons of Japan. Having published more than 450 books, Araki is also one of the most prolific artists living or dead throughout the world.

But what makes him known to the world is his famous eroticism. From explicit photographs of women tied-up in S&M styles and naked prostitutes serving male costumers (some images of which even include Araki performing these sex acts himself), to subtler images of flowers, fruits, or even ground cracks that look like sexual genitals, Araki's erotic photographs not only have a astonishingly wide range of subjects, but also earn the reputation of a pornographer, fetishist, and erotomaniac for their creator, who seems obsessed with sexualising everything in life.

Photographs form Nabuyoshi Araki's book, "Erotos" (2013).

"When did I start taking photographs? I've forgotten. But as far as I remember it was just after my birth! I must have gone out carrying a camera. I turned around and I took a photo. From that moment on, I was hooked. "

                                        --Nobuyoshi Araki talking about how he began taking photographs; from Contacts Vol. 2. Portraits of Contemporary Photographers

Araki was born on May 25, 1940 in Tokyo, where he currently resides. His father ran a ghetta (Japanese clogs) shop but spent more time doing assignments as a semi-pro photographer, with Araki helping out as assistant. Araki studied photography at Chiba University from 1959 to 1963. However, the curriculum – with an emphasis on photography as science bored Araki to death. He found himself spending more time at the Kyobashi Film Library watching movies by Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio de Sica. He later pursued a career as a commercial photographer at the advertising agency Dentsu. There he met his lifelong wife, the essayist Yōko Araki. Yoko married Araki in 1971 and became Araki's first model ever, and the couple soon left Dentsu while Araki set off his career as a freelencer.

 Araki and his wife Yoko in 1967

    Shortly after their marriage, Araki self-published his first photo book, the first part of a prolonged series, "Sentimental Journey 1972-1992". The book documents both mundane and deeply intimate moments from the couple’s wedding and honeymoon,  and soon established the two prominent features of Araki's works even in this burgeoning stage of the artist's career: sex and diarial narrative.

"Taking photos is erotic"----Araki

    Araki likens his camera to the vagina, with the photographer saying that he feels that when he takes a picture, he is inside the camera, ‘entering’ the subject in the same way as he enters a woman. He calls his camera his “vagin-eye”. Interestingly, the artist also claims that his camera "almost always has an erection" as if the "camera is a penis", while he himself has sexual drive weaker than most. 

screenshot from an interview of Araki on shooting for the second issue of the Tokyo-based style magazine, The Reality Show

    "Araki has undoubtedly had a taboo-breaking career. His graphic images confront the hidden eroticism that lies beneath the surface of polite Japanese society; sex, prostitution, BDSM and the role of the Geisha are all subjects the fearless photographer addresses. By pointing his camera lens at the hidden sexual underbelly of Japanese society, he tackles off-limit issues and confronts the hypocrisy of the country’s censorship laws. The nature of some of his pictures has been so outrageous, in fact, that the he’s been arrested for obscenity under Japanese law"

--Dazed, June 2016

    His collection, Erortos, is considered one of the most quintessential Araki works. In the book’s black-and-white images, Araki seeks out the form of female genitalia in the natural world, while a curved pipe, meanwhile, suggests the male body. 

"With EROTOS the initial concept was to create a book of ultimate photographs, where the audience is forced to understand the photos without any text whatsoever. " --Araki

    Abstract and muted, these works are erotically evocative, rather than explicit. The artist’s reasoning for their appeal is a little less nuanced: “Why do they come across as erotic? Because I shot them. That’s what my photos are.”