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 towards taking photos of people and places in New York's East Village (where she has lived since 1998), as well as all over 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 residing in Hoboken, New Jersey.
She has studied under the photographer Fumio Tanai since 2013. She was featured as a street photo Instagrammer in “NY Japion” in 2017. One of her photos that she took in Cambodia was featured in the Chania International Photo Festival in August, 2018. In May 2020, her street photos of New York under the Covid-19 pandemic were featured on the website ‘telling’ run by The Asahi Shimbun. In June 2020, her photos of a street artist, Fumeroism painting an East Village mural honoring George Floyd were featured on the website 'BrooklynVegan'.
In December 2023, her photo of the International Puppet Fringe Festival (in New York City's Lower East Side), was awarded in the Chromatic Awards with an Honorable Mention in the Cityscapes category. In January 2024, her photo of a Peruvian Catholic procession in New York's East Village was awarded in the Monochrome Photography Awards 2023 in the Street category.