Tata grew up in Shanghai where he learned the basics of photography from several mentors including Lang Jingshan and Liu Xucang.
A friendship begun in Bombay with the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson transformed his approach, with an emphasis towards street photography and a more natural style in his portraits.
Via Hong Kong and India, Tata emigrated to Montreal in 1956, where he created documentary stills for the National Film Board and continued photography for various publications.
[4] A friend at the club, Alex Buchman, who was working as a photojournalist for the China Press, inspired Tata to buy his first Leica and roam the streets for meaningful images.
His focus on portraiture in these years was partly dictated by the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in 1937, and Tata was not able to take up photography full-time until 1946 when he arrived in Calcutta.
[11] Several months later, at another show sponsored by the Bombay Art Society,[12] Tata met French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, and through his influence and mentorship, was galvanized to take up photojournalism with renewed vigour.
[22] Sometimes on assignment, but increasingly on his own initiative, he began to amass a portfolio of Canadian literary and artistic figures, including Michel Tremblay, Leonard Cohen, Bill Reid, Irving Layton, George Bowering, Donald Sutherland, Alice Munro, and Jacques de Tonnancour.
Tata's experience was that the better portraits often started to appear in the middle of the film roll, after subjects had relaxed their guard and became active participants.
[3] He received the Canada Council's Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (1982)[27] and was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
[12] On April 8, 2015, Canada Post issued a permanent domestic stamp with a photograph entitled Angels, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, taken in Montreal by Tata in 1962.