Hiroshi Sugimoto Japanese, b. 1948

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer whose work explores themes of time, memory, and the limits of human perception. Born in Tokyo in 1948 and based in both Tokyo and New York, Sugimoto is known for his technically precise black-and-white photography that often blurs the line between conceptual art and visual meditation. His Seascapes series, begun in the 1980s, is among his most iconic—each image capturing a tranquil meeting of sea and sky from locations around the world, always composed with a perfectly level horizon. These works reflect his fascination with the eternal and the unchanging, presenting the ocean as a silent witness to the passage of geological and human time. Beyond the Seascapes, Sugimoto’s diverse practice includes haunting photographs of wax figures, movie theaters, and architectural icons, all unified by a rigorous investigation into how time can be compressed into a single, still image.