Tosh Tanaka is a documentary photographer, sound recordist and educator. As a trained photojournalist, working the past 20 years, he produced multimedia presentations for the Modesto Bee newspaper: years in review (1997-1999), elections coverage from Cambodia (1997), and travel to China’s interior (2000). He has since photographed and recorded for Friends and Families of Nisei Veterans final visit to French battlefields (2009); and University of California Santa Cruz’s Nagamine Oral History Project (2011) linking the modern histories of Japan, China and the U.S.
Tanaka has taught photography to a wide range of students beginning with refugee and immigrant middle and high school students at the AjA Project, a nonprofit organization headquartered in San Diego, California. Utilizing participatory photography methods and an assets-based model, AjA’s programs transform youth and communities. He then went on to teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in creative photographic projects at UC Santa Cruz as a member of the Social Sciences Media Lab.
He is the current Media Director for UC Santa Cruz’s Okinawa Memories
Initiative Multimedia Project (2014-), where he also contributes his skills
as photographer, sound recordist, photographic technology researcher,
and mentor to student participants.
Tosh Tanaka 