Through his contact with an ex-pupil of the Tonbridge School Hugh Cecil, Tanqueray began his photographic career as one of his pupils.
[2] Five years of success in Kensington led to a move the more fashionable West End of London at 8, Dover Street, near the Ritz Hotel.
Tanqueray's photographs appeared regularly in the weekly Sketch and Tatler and most frequently inside and on the cover of Theatre World.
His work, including Ethel Mannin and his 1929 and 1933 a portraits of Anna May Wong, was also selected and hung at the annual London Salon of Photography.
After the war he re-opened his studio at 30, Thurloe Place in South Kensington, where his 1950s famous images included Elizabeth Seal, Dame Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave and actress Claire Bloom.