About

MT Gallery

A decade ago I started Ugmonk as a side project to design a few high-quality tees that I personally wanted. A lot has changed since then, but our core mission hasn't. Maybe better viewed as a renewed Ugmonk, the New Ugmonk raises the bar on quality, experience, and aesthetic — a matured vision for creating and curating beautiful, functional products.

Mikiya Takimoto
Photographer Cinematographer / Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1974. Apprenticed to Tamotsu Fujii in 1994. Went independent in 1998 and founded the Mikiya Takimoto Photograph Office. Active in a wide variety of fields spanning everything from advertising photography, graphic art and editorial work to personal creative endeavors, commercial films, and cinema. Major photo collections include LAND SPACE ('13), SIGHTSEEING ('07), BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO ('05), CROSSOVER ('18). Also began filming movies in '12. Debut film "Like Father, Like Son / Soshite Chichininaru" (directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda) won the Jury Award at the 66th Cannes Film Festival's Competition Category. Received Best Cinematography Award at the 39th Japan Academy Awards for "Our Little Sister" in '15. "The Third Murder / "Sandome no Satsujin" plays In Competition at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. It has also won many other commendations such as Tokyo Art Directors Club ADC Awards, New York ADC Annual Awards Winners GOLD, Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity GOLD, ACC Commercial Festival Grand Prize, Asahi Advertising Award Grand Prize, Nikkei Advertising Awards Grand Prize, New York CLIO AWARDS GOLD, and London D&AD Professional Awards YELLOW PENCIL.
Mikiya Takimoto entered the world of photography in 1991 at the age of 16. In 1992 he moved to Tokyo and worked in a studio before beginning a four-year apprenticeship under Tamotsu Fujii in 1994. He then became independent in 1998 at the age of 23. All of his work evinces a stance of confronting the realm of photography as something that remains unchanged from the past to the present. In his collection “BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO” (PIE BOOKS), Mikiya Takimoto offers a unique perspective on the abstract art of Bauhaus Dessau, the famed German art and design school known as the source of contemporary design. His lifework, “SIGHTSEEING” (Little More), is a collection of photographs in which he traveled to all seven continents, focusing on sightseeing destinations and the people who flock to them, revealing a cynical take on the unreality of “real” tourism. and bringing to mind the warped nature of modern society. In “LAND SPACE” (SEIGENSHA), Mikiya Takimoto turns his attention to the similarities between the splendor of nature rearranged upon the Earth for such a long time, and the formal beauty of the space industry, the pinnacle of civilization created by human hands. The result seems to be almost a commanding overview of the Earth from the two seemingly opposite viewpoints of land and space. Mikiya Takimoto has also shown his skill in advertising photography and commercial films through numerous posters and videos that still brim with keen and original concepts despite many restrictions. Mikiya Takimoto also drew upon his experiences in photography and film, along with his perspective as an expressionist, to create a unique cinematic world as the cinematographer of the films “Like Father, Like Son/Soshite Chichininaru” and “Our Little Sister/Umimachi Diary” and "The Third Murder/Sandome no Satsujin"

Mikiya Takimoto
Photographer / Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1974. Studied under Tamotsu Fujii from 1994. Became independent as a photographer in 1998 and established the Mikiya Takimoto Photography Studio. Works in a wide range of fields, including advertising photography, graphics, editorials, his own creative work, commercial films, and movies. His main works include LAND SPACE (2013), LOUIS VUITTON FOREST (2011), SIGHTSEEING (2007), BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO (2005), and CROSSOVER (2018). He has also been working on film photography since 2012. His first film, Like Father, Like Son (directed by Hirokazu Koreeda), won the Jury Prize in the Competition Section at the 66th Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, he won the Best Cinematography Award at the 39th Japan Academy Film Awards for Our Little Sister. In 2017, "The Third Murder" was selected for the Competition Section at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. He has received numerous awards both in Japan and abroad, including the Tokyo ADC Award, New York ADC Award Gold, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival Gold, ACC Grand Prix, Asahi Advertising Award Grand Prix, Nikkei Advertising Award Grand Prix, New York CLIO AWARDS Gold, and London D&AD YELLOW PENCIL.
He entered the world of photography in 1991 at the age of 16. In 1992, he moved to Tokyo and worked in a studio, and from 1994, he studied under Tamotsu Fujii for four years. In 1998, he became independent at the age of 23. His work so far has conveyed his unchanging attitude towards the world of photography. In his work "BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO," he captured the German school of design, Bauhaus Dessau, which became the basis of modern design, from a unique perspective similar to the abstract paintings produced by the school. In his life's work "SIGHTSEEING," he traveled to the seven continents of the world, and created works that cynically expose the unrealistic world that floats in the reality of "tourism," with the theme of tourist destinations and the people who visit them, and also evoke the distortion of real society. Furthermore, in "LAND SPACE," he focused on the similarities between the grandeur of nature that has been nurtured on this land for a long time and the beauty of the space industry, an advanced civilization created by humankind, and somehow gave the impression of looking down on the Earth from the two seemingly polar opposite perspectives of "LAND" and "SPACE." In advertising photography and commercial films, he has also demonstrated his talent by producing numerous posters and videos with his sharp and original imagination despite any constraints. His wealth of experience and perspective as an artist cultivated through such photography and film have led to him serving as cinematographer for the films "Like Father, Like Son," "Our Little Sister," and "The Third Murder," creating his own unique visual worlds.