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Born in Tokyo, Japan. Studied at St. Paul's University, Tokyo (1966-70), BFA, Art Centre College of Design, Los Angeles, California (1972). In 1974 moved to New York where he lives. He makes use of photography to recreate reality. Between 1978-80 his subject was the interiors of American theatres of the 20's and 30's, reconverted to cinemas, and Drive-ins, the American recreation of the 30's. "In my work I don't want to have any human image in my pictures, people are present through the traces they leave behind. In the movie theatres I am actually photographing people - many, many people - all the hundreds of thousands of people that appear in the movie. It is just that they are all overexposed and disappear into the whiteness", he said. His screens contain too much information and this means emptiness. Repetition in series is also part of the concept. He spends quite some time on choosing a subject. In the twenty-five years of his career he has only made seven series of photographs. All Sugimoto's photographs have been done as 24 x 24 inch (51x61cm) gelatine prints. One-person exhibitions: 1977 Minami Gallery, Tokyo, 1981-83-89 Sonnabend, New York, 1998 Centro Cultural de Belem, Lisbon, The Japan Foundation, Istituto Giapponese di Cultura, Rome.

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