Figure 1.--Here we see a young Japanese Army recruit in 1913. It is one of the new style cabinet card mounts. Notice hat i ws not tken in the studio, but is professionally posed. We suspect tha phoograph was taken by a street photographer. Surprisingly given the modern Japanese penchant for phoography, only a small numbrr of Japanese famles had cameras until the reforms promulgated by the American occupation (1945-53). Click on the image, to see the writing associated with this portrait. The portrait was shot by Hagiwara photo studio of Kitagata City. The inscription gives the ages as 22 and 17.

Photography began in Europe and America with the opening of Daguerreotype studios (1840s). Very little of this or other Western technology filtered into Japan as the Shogunate kept the country closed to the West. There was only a small Dutch trading post in Nagasaki where foreign trade and contacts were allowed under extremely limited conditions. It was here that the Japanese saw their first photographic portraits--Daguerreotypes. It is believed that a Dutch photographer took the first photograph in Japan. His identity and when he took that photograph appears lost to history. Only after Japan was opened to the West by Commodore Perry (1853) did modern refinements like photography begin to filter in to the country. Here because of their existing contacts, the Dutch helped introduce photography to Japan. Other foreigners soon were involved in this process. As this began to occur in the 1850s we see processes like the Ambrotype entering Japan. Thus most early Japanese photographs are Ambrotypes rather than Daguerreotypes. We are not sure when the first albumen print was made, but surely it must have been during the late-50s, more probably the 60s. But the numbers are very small and we have found very few. The Ambro on the previous is a rare example. Even so, we notice ambrotypes still being made in the 1880s. The Ambrotype process in the West was displaced by albumen CDVs and cabinet cards in the 1860s. The number of Japanese photographers gradually increased and there were soon many Japanese studios (1870s). Most of the early Japanese Japanese portraits we have found are albumen prints. studios gradually replaced the Europeans (1880s). In he Weest, he CDV was very popular. We are not sure about Japan, bu we have not found a lot of CDVs. Mostly we see cabinet card portraits in the late-19th century. With the development of simple, inexpensive cameras, amateur photography became a popular hobby as was the case in the West. The Kodak Brownie changed photography for ever and helped moved photography outside of the studio. Studio photography still dominated because Japan was still a relatively poor country compared to America and Europe. As Asia's only industrial country, we begin to see family snapshots. This was not to he same extent as other industrial countries because so much of Japan's national income went tot the military. The Pacific War changed everything (1941-45). The reforms introduced by the American occupation changed everything. Japan became one of the most prosperous countries in the world. The profits from industry went to generating prosperity rather than military spending. And virtually every family in Japan had cameras taking countless family snapshots. Japanese camera companies began to dominate the international market, And Fuji became a main player in film.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Japanese pages:
[Return to the Main Japanese photography page]
[Return to the Main Japanese page]
[Return to the Main country page]
[Choirs] [Department store catalogs] [Monarchy] [Music recitals] [Scouts] [School uniforms]

Created: 1:27 PM 12/31/2024
Last updated: 1:28 PM 12/31/2024