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.”
