Hiro Tanaka was born and raised in Japan and has lived in the United States for several years. An interesting coincidence led him to start taking photographs, and getting on the van, traveling with punk bands in United States and Europe – after accidentally winning a free trip to the US through raffles at a shopping mall in Tokyo, since then he has been taking photographs, shooting video footage and collecting English slangs and phrases. He has won Cosmos Arles PDF Award, ShainBook Award in France, YET #11 in Switzerland, and has been selected as a finalist and shortlisted for several awards such as the Kassel Photobook Award, Kassel Dummy Award, Gomma Photography Grant, Daylight Photo Award and more. Tanaka has had exhibitions in several international photo festivals.