Motoko Shimizu is a street and portrait photographer based in New York City. In 1995, she came to New York to pursue a career as a rock singer and enjoyed an active career as an experimental music singer/multi-instrumentalist.
Since 2012, her artistic passion has shifted to photographing people and places in New York's East Village (where she has lived since 1998) and around the world. She specializes in street and family portraits using a candid "street photo" approach (outside of a studio setting). Her ongoing project (since summer of 2018) is a multi-year chronicle of the Lauridsen family of Hoboken, New Jersey.
Mostly self-taught, she has also been mentored by the photographer Fumio Tanai since 2013. She also attended a digital photography class at the International Center of Photography in New York City in the fall of 2015.
AWARDS/ PUBLICATIONS
-24th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, 2024 - Winner in the Cityscapes category and Honorable Mention in the Street Photography category
-19th Black & White Spider Awards Nominee (People), 2024
-Monochrome Photography\ Awards Honorable Mention (Street Photography), 2024
-Artist Gallery Awards Open Theme Photo Contest Honorable Mention, 2024
-Chromatic Awards Honorable Mention (Cityscapes), 2023
-FotoNostrum Magazine Special 24th JMCA Issue, 2024
-Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, 2024
-BrooklynVegan, 2020
-Asahi Shimbun's "telling" website, 2020