Favourite Takashi Amano Photos

[Chris Jackson]

The late Takashi Amano inspired and popularised the planted aquarium globally to levels never seen previously largely through the power of the superb images of his aquascapes captured with high end large format film cameras.

I was inspired to post this as a result of revisiting http://amanotakashi.net/portfolio/nature_aquarium/index.html which features some timelessly stunning images. Here's one of my favourites..



What are yours?

 

[Martin in Holland]

There are just to many awesome photo's of his tanks to narrow it down to one....couldn't make a choice.

 

[Chris Jackson]

There are just to many awesome photo's of his tanks to narrow it down to one....couldn't make a choice.

No I couldn't choose just one either but I've always particularly loved these two from the book that started it all..not that these pics do them justice. These scapes look particularly natural to my eye

 

[Greenfinger2]

Hi I love the look of this Scape

 

[Chris Jackson]

Call me old school but I rather prefer his earlier works with no cosmetic white sand.

 

[PARAGUAY]

II

 

[PARAGUAY]

It is sort of difficult as Martin says so many you could just be inspired by

 

[Tim Harrison]

@chris The Old Growth Forest happens to be one of my favourites as well🙂
But my all time favourite is...The Most Memorable Turquoise Discus.

 

[Chris Jackson]

Hi Troi, yes when I first saw that discus tank photo I was totally gobsmacked. It's just absolutely stunning! Thanks for reminding me one of my all time favourites for sure.

Keep em coming

 

[Chris Jackson]

Whilst thinking of Amano discus scapes these came to mind. Oh the grandeur of large tanks...

 

[Martin in Holland]

Those pictures make me want to get a 180 tank......

 

[Greenfinger2]

Those pictures make me want to get a 180 tank......

Me too 😀 But the Wife says NO 🙁

 

[Chris Jackson]

The tank data with the pictures doesn't seem to compute at all with current thinking.. A 1800 x 100 x 90 tank....CO2 5 bubbles per sec... ummm

 

[Martin in Holland]

Me too 😀 But the Wife says NO 🙁

I don't even dare to ask my wife...she just bought a gun.

 

[Straight Shooter]

The tank data with the pictures doesn't seem to compute at all with current thinking.. A 1800 x 100 x 90 tank....CO2 5 bubbles per sec... ummm

It seems to be a low light CO2 scape. Many of the plants Amano used often were low-medium light plants. He mostly never ran CO2 at the high levels used today. I think he preferenced moderate but steady healthy growth rather than growing plants like weeds as most of us like to do. Amano methods are significantly different to EI method; lower CO2, lower nutrient levels, lower light (sometimes high light though).

He may also have been running a reactor with more efficient CO2 diffusion, reducing the bubble count required.

 

[Chris Jackson]

I have a 120 x 60 x 60 tank and the maintenance time and running costs for that get quite tiresome enough if I run it as a high light tank. The thought of a 180 x 100 x 90..... yes I'd need staff

 

[Chris Jackson]

Better image of one of the above..



Or something smaller but beautifully captured...

 

[zozo]

Is it known how many scapes Master Amano made in his life?

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

I won't be surprised if the count is over 1 thousand setups. Just rough calculation: he was working with tanks since 70s-80s? So we can assume at least 30-40 years of his activity. Even if I assume 30 years and 50 scapes per year, I'm already get about 1500 scapes. I think it's possible, given in mind in the NA gallery at least 20 big tanks and a lot of smaller ones. Does it sound true?

 

[parotet]

50 scapes per year,

Easily I would say... in a lot of videos you can see him sitting in front of two tanks with a pile of layout materials around while his minions are working on them. The same when he was training people. He could easily scape 3 or 4 small tanks (60p and 90p) in each session.

Jordi