Meredith, who was president of the Weatherhill publishing house, bought Yato his first camera, and his friends showed him how to use it.
In the preface to his 1972 collection Otoko, Tamotsu Yato wrote: when these young men stand before my camera I never find in their nudity the slightest trace of vulgarity or coarseness.
Instead, it is a thrilling moment that arouses in me much the same emotions as those I feel when I see a perfect fruit just fresh from the tree, or a brand-new expensive camera still in the shop window.Even though Yato's work received only a limited public distribution, it has attained a cult following and has been acknowledged as a major influence by a number of artists working with male erotica.
Thus, Sadao Hasegawa remarks in his Paradise Visions: "Tamotsu Yato achieved fame by creating Otoko, a picture book.
Tamotsu Yatō died in sleep in his apartment in Takadanobaba from a heart condition at the age of forty-five.