Born in 1928 in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, HIMEDA Tadayoshi graduated from the local business university in 1948. Six years later, Himeda went to Tokyo and worked there in the field of modern theatre. In addition to his work as a screenwriter for television, he studied with the ethnologist MIYAMOTO Tsuneichi. In 1976, Himeda founded the Center for Ethnological Visual Documentation (Minzoku Bunka Eizō Kenkyujo), which he has headed until 2012.

For more than 50 years, he has been documenting the lives and culture of the common people using visual media, and created more than 120 films.

Himeda and his Center are known worldwide through joint projects with the Collège de France in France, lectures and film series at Harvard University, and events at universities, museums and research institutions in Europe. He has received numerous important prizes in Japan and abroad for his work.