Akashi Photo is a photo agency that presents the photographic work of Toru Morimoto and Tina Bagué. Both photographers focus on documentary photography, but also work on portraits and landscapes. Their original prints are permanently displayed at “CASA MIYAMA”, a thatched-roof inn in Miyama, Kyoto, and “AKASHI GALLEY”, a Japanese restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. Photobooks, prints and original products are also available at Akashi Photo's online shop. Feel free to contact us with any questions or photography assignments.
TORU MORIMOTO
He started working as a photographer for The Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper in Nairobi, while he was a master student of the photojournalism department in the School of Journalism, University of Missouri. In 1998, he documented the US Embassy bombing in Nairobi.
After internships in Magnum Photos and The New York Times both in New York, he moved to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and started freelancing to cover the West Africa. Later, he moved to Tokyo. Since 2004, when he moved to Barcelona, he has been focusing on various photographic documentary projects all over the world. His works have been published mostly in American and European publications such as Newsweek, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Time Magazine, Los Angels Times, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Courrier International, and so on.
In 2007 he won an award of excellence from POYi and in 2009 he won the 10th Ueno Hikoma Award in Japan.
In 2020, he went back to Japan. Currently he is based in a village deep in the mountains of Kyoto where he is working on alternative process such as wet plate collodion, polaroid transfer, and platinum print. In July 2020, his platinum print works were published as a photo book “SHIZEN” by an Italian publisher, Origini Edizioni.
TINA BAGUÉ
Being interested in photography since her youth, Tina Bagué studied photography in Barcelona and in the States. While in USA she documented the New York's street life in black and white with her Lubitel.
In 1998 she started working as a freelance photographer. At the same time, she started teaching black and white darkroom work. Getting inspired by the Japanese culture on her first trip to Japan in 2002, she decided to specialize in travel photography. She has travelled to more than 20 countries, producing travel reportages that have appeared in many Spanish magazines such as El Dominical del Periodico, Mujer 21, Woman, Viajar, Ronda Iberia, Iberia Excelente, El País Semanal, Rutas del Mundo, Altair, Yo Dona, Conde Nast Traveller, Spanair and in Italian magazines such as Panorama and Panorama Travel or Newsweek Japan among others.
From 2002 to 2012 she was the chief editor of a Spanish photo magazine, Digitalfoto, published in Barcelona by MC Ediciones.