Tatsuya Tanaka, a Japanese artist, is known worldwide as the creator of the project "Miniature Calendar", which he began in April 2011 and continues this work till now. Every day a photo of tiny characters in modern world appears in the calendar. The main pecularity is that the real things — household items, food, stationery, clothing, shoes, etc. — acquire a completely new and unexpected meaning. A broccoli turns into a tree, a toaster into a beach, mandarin skin into a boat, and, all of a sudden, an unironed shirt becomes a boundless sea.

Tatsuya Tanaka was born in 1981 in Kumamoto Prefecture (on Kyushu Island). "I liked small plastic toys since childhood, and I loved to look at the pictures in the books", says Tatsuya.

In 2010, he started his blog as a designer. "Working as a designer, I got interested in photography. I really wanted to share my experience and some ideas with those who are also interested in photography. For example, about composition. It is more convenient to explain with the help of examples which requires a model. But I couldn't afford to hire a model for it, so I decided to use dolls instead".

If you place a doll next to broccoli, you can imagine that there is a real forest around it. If you put a figure on a dry leaf fallen from a tree into the water, you can see a quiet harbor with boats.

As Tatsuya has a lot of work, he improves the process: "I usually choose one topic and one object. An try to understand what it looks like. I photograph everything that comes to my mind until I "squeeze" all the ideas out of this object". When publishing, all these ideas, of course, get mixed for the whole April not to have all types of broccoli at various angles, and the whole November — a computer keyboard.

Mainly, Tatsuya works in the genre of diorama. He uses different scales in his project, the largest is 1:12, a standard "doll" size, most of the vintage doll houses have this exact scale. The smallest is 1:2500. Besides, the most popular sizes are 1:25, 1:45 and 1:160.

Unfortunately, Tatsuya does not make the figures himself (he only colors them if necessary), and uses tiny figures for diorama. This is a famous children Schleich, and most popular provider of scenery for railroads, Preiser. He has more than 1000 different figures in his collection.

Today, he is followed by 2 million people from around the world, the photos of his works are published in albums and books, he holds exhibitions and actively participates in various programs on the radio and television in Japan.

On January 17, 2019, the number of photo days reached the number of 2800. Without any repetitions! A mind-blowing example for beginners or bloggers out of ideas who "don't know what to write about" :)

Let us see how rich can an associative fantasy be, how the world changes when looking at it from a tiny figure angle. And I advise you to try to imagine what these or that objects remind you of. This is a useful exercise for people who work with small things, and for monumentalists: turning in the opposite direction will look impressive as well! It is also a great idea for advertising.

Would you like to buy these shadows immediately?

Or a lipstick?

Or chocolate jelly beans?