Photography in Japan


The history of photography in Japan begins in the 19th century and has continued to be a prominent art form into the present era.

19th-century photography

Importation of Photography

In 1848, a camera for daguerréotype was imported by a Dutch ship to Japan. It is said that this was the first camera in Japan. During Edo era, the import and the export had been prohibited by the Edo Government, except that only Dutch ships had been permitted to export and import various goods at Nagasaki Port. Therefore, the first camera was introduced at Nagasaki. This camera was imported by Ueno Toshinojō and in 1849 passed to Shimazu Nariakira, who later would become a feudal lord of Satsuma Domain.
In Satsuma Domain, detailed study with respect to photography had been done, but it took almost ten years from the acquisition of the first camera to taking the first photograph. In 1857, SHIMAZU Nariakira's photograph was taken by Ichiki Shirō and UJUKU Hikoemon . This is said to be the first photograph taken by Japanese and still exist and can be seen at Shōko Shūseikan.
In 1854, Convention of Kanagawa was concluded between U.S. and Japan, Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty was concluded between Britain and Japan, and Treaty of Shimoda was concluded between Russia and Japan. The treaties opened the Japanese ports of Shimoda, Hakodate and Nagasaki to the trade. In 1858, Treaty of Amity and Commerce .was concluded between U.S. and Japan and opened the port of Kanagawa, but soon the port of Yokohama, which is close to Kanagawa, opened for the trade with foreign countries in exchange to the port of Kanagawa. The trade based on these treaties began in 1858 at Yokohama, Nagasaki and Hakodate. This is called Kaikoku in Japanese language. Thanks to Kaikoku, more and more cameras and other photography-related equipment and materials had been imported to Japan. Further some foreign photographers, such as Felix Beato came to Japan and took many photographs of Japan.
In 1862, Ueno Hikoma opened his photo studio in Nagasaki and Shimooka Renjo opened his photo studio in Noge, in the same year, but independently. The open of these two photo studios for portraits indicated the new era of Japanese photography.

Professional Photographers in Meiji Era

After the opening of Ueno Studio and Shimooka Studio, around the turning point between Edo Era and Meiji Era, several new photo studios were opened, such as that of Kuichi Uchida in 1865 in Osaka and in 1866 moved to Yokohama, that of Yohei Hori in 1865 in Kyoto, that of Kōkichi Kizu in 1866 in Hakodate, that of Rihei Tomishige in Yanagawa, Chikugo in 1866 and that of Yokoyama Matsusaburō.
Among these photographers, Uchida Kuichi is most famous for his photographs of Meiji Emperor in 1872 and 1873, which photographs have been called Goshin'ei and were used as public portraits of Meiji Emperor. "真" means "true" and "影" means " image" or "portrait" and "御" means honorific prefix for "真影". In Meiji Era, only very limited persons, such as prime ministers, could meet Meiji Emperor in person and most Japanese people in Meiji Era had no chance to see Meiji Emperor. But Meiji Emperor's image was necessary for him to govern Japan and Japanese nations. Therefore, Meiji Government prepared "御真影" and used "御真影" for Emperor's governance and Meiji Government's governance.
As other photographers, Kakoku Shima and Ryū Shima should be mentioned. They were a husband and a wife and began taking photography together around 1863 or 1864, and Ryū Shima was called the first woman professional photographer.
Further, around the 1860s and 1900, Yokohama-shashin was very popular. Yokohama-shashin was a photograph of Japanese scenery, Japanese people and Japanese cultures and a very widely used souvenir especially for foreign people. Among photographers for Yokohama-shashin, Felix Beato and Kusakabe Kimbei were very famous.
Because of Kaikoku, many foreign people came to Japan. Further, after Meiji Ishin, many Japanese were able to travel within Japan without breaking laws and began to travel within Japan. Yokohama was a suitable place to visit both for foreign people and Japanese people, and Yokohama-shashin attracted such travellers very much.
Two main characteristics of Yokohama-shashin were;
  1. a well-decorated album-style photographs, and
  2. hand-colored photographs.
But towards the end of the 19th century, picture post cards, which were much cheaper than Yokohama-shashin, became very popular and were widely used in Japan, and many amateur photographers were emerging, who liked to take pictures by themselves than to buy expensive Yokohama-shashin. These were the major reasons for Yokohama-shashin to decline.
In the 1880s, photographers in a new generation and new types began their activities. Reiji Esaki, who took photographs of experimental torpedo explosion in Sumida river in 1883, and Kazuma Ogawa, who not only took photographs but also was the managers of a printing factory, were particularly famous among them.
In the 1860s and 1870s, many photographs of Hokkaidō were taken, which photographs are called Hokkaidō Kaitaku Shashin. In the 1860s and 1870s, Hokkaidō was under the development by the Japanese Government. The Government in Tokyo needed detailed reports of the development in writing, and they thought reports with photographs should be better and the Government requested some photographers to take photographs of the development in Hokkaidō. Such photographers included Tamoto Kenzō, Kōkichi Ida, Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Seiichi Takebayashi and Sakuma Hanzō.

Emerging Amateur Photographers

Around the middle of the 1880s, photographers began to use gelatin dry plates very widely. Before the spread of gelatin dry plates, the wet collodion process was ordinary process for photography in Japan and to use this process was very difficult in technical points and also it costs a considerable sum of money. It means almost no amateur photographers can exist without gelatin dry plates.
Two famous examples of earliest amateur photographers in Japan were as follows;
Wide spread of gelatin dry plates and small-sized cameras led to the era of prominent amateur photographers in the 20th century in Japan.

Other Major Photographers

Era of ''Geijutsushashin'' (Era of Pictorialism)

History

After WWII, there appeared the era of Hōdōshashin again, mainly led by Ken Domon, Ihee Kimura and Yōnosuke Natori, all of three were very active even during WWII. Avant-garde photography including surrealism and pictorialism photography had almost disappeared behind photojournalism after WWII because photography other than photojournalism which supported Japanese government and Japanese military powers was completely oppressed by the Japanese government during WWII. It took several years before avant-garde photography came back to the stage of the history of Japanese photography.

21st century