Research Guides: Early Photography in Asia: Japan

Rare and Distinctive Collections

rad@colorado.edu

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Classroom: Norlin N345

Reading Room: Norlin M350B

Rare Books Librarian

Sean Babbs

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East Asian Librarian

Xiang Li

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xiang.li@colorado.edu

(303) 492-7454

Subjects: Asian Languages & Civilizations

Introduction

The University of Colorado Boulder Libraries holds a variety of early photographs of Japan. Japan is fairly unique among Asian countries in that it was never colonized, and actually turned into an imperial power in the region itself by the late 1800s. Studios first flourished in Yokohama, the port city that western visitors had to travel through, but Japan adopted photographic technology quickly. By 1890, basically all the photo studios in Japan were run by Japanese photographers. However, their audience tended to be western travelers and Japanese elite, selling a certain aesthetic of Japan. By the turn of the 20th century, the Japanese were also widely printing books with photographic reproductions, often in the service of their empire, striking an interesting comparison between how European imperial powers used photography in the same period. By the 1920s, amateur photography flourished all over Japan (see Ross, 2015).

Japanese souvenir albums and prints

As western tourism ramped up in Japan at the end of the 1800s, Japanese photography studios, particularly in port towns like Yokohama, catered to travelers with the sale of customizable photo albums or prints. These albums contained ornate covers and pages that travelers could fill with photographs selected from a studio's inventory, which could have been up to 2000 different photographs. The albums are often a complicated mix of photographs from different photographers that were selected by westerners to represent their travels in Japan. Each one, therefore, is unique and provides insight into the westerners who choose the images, the studio that created the covers and had select photographs on hand, and the artists who hand-colored many of the prints. These albums were particularly popular in the 1880s and 1890s. By the early 1900s, film cameras made personal photography much more realistic for foreign travelers to Japan. For more information, see: Allen Hockley, "Packaged tours: photo albums and their implications for the study of early Japanese photography," in Reflecting truth: Japanese photography in the nineteenth century ( Amsterdam: Hotei, 2004), p. 66-85.

Souvenir photograph album of Japan with photographs by T. Enami, Reiji Esaki, and others, between 1892 and 1899.
Note: link goes to the digitized album.
A souvenir photograph album of people and places in Japan, characteristic of albums popular with tourists in the late 1800s. They were often created at a photo studio or photo dealer using studio images (as opposed to a tourist's personal images). This album also includes two smaller-format snapshots of two western men posing with Japanese women on the first page who were likely the owners of the album. Almost half the images depict Japanese people (mostly women), while the others show a variety of views around Tokyo, Nikko, Kamakura, Matsushima, Mount Fuji, and unlabled locations.
Asia and Mediterranean Photograph Album, 1875-1891
Note: link goes to the digitized album.
A photograph album of early images taken and collected from Asia and the Mediterranean. The early pages of the album are from Japan (p. 2-9), including unique original images from the disastrous 1891 Mino-Owari Earthquake. Other images appear to have been collected throughout tourist locations in Japan and were likely sold by Japanese photographers.

Western travelers

As film cameras made taking one's own photographs on trips more realistic for many western travelers, individual snapshot albums began to replace the souvenir photo albums of the 19th century.

Photograph album of Japan, China, and the Pacific, 1900
Note: link goes to the digitized album.
An album compiled with photographs from ship tours of Japan, China, and other locations in the Pacific Ocean. It is likely a group album, since it highlights multiple people, routes, and destinations. Locations in Japan include Tokyo, Yokohama, Miyanoshita Onsen, Sugita, Kobe, Nara, and Kyoto.
An American Tourist in Japan, 1901
Note: not digitized, link goes to the catalog record.
A two-volume photograph album of Japan taken by an American tourist in 1901, with captions in English. Images include scenes of Japanese street life and landscapes, as well as some images related to the cruise the tourists took to get to Japan.
Photograph album of Japan, the Philippines, and Washington state, c. 1908-1918
A personal photograph album likely compiled by an American family who lived in Washington state and who traveled around the Pacific Ocean in the early twentieth century. 30 images of Japan mostly highlight Nagasaki, Kobe, and Osaka.
Japan Album, 1911
A photograph album with 125 images of a tourist trip to Japan in 1911, likely compiled by an English woman. The photographs depict various cities, local people, and attractions in central Japan, including Nikko, Mount Nasu, Mount Asama, Kamakura, Chuzenji Lake, etc.
Three volumes of Japanese photography, 1911
These items are not yet cataloged or digitized. Contact RaD for access.
Mountaineering in Japan Photograph Album, 1916-1923
Photographs depict expeditions to climb Fujiyama and various of the Japan Alps, with scenes along the way of people and places, ecstatic pilgrims, the Imperial bodyguard, women's groups, schoolchildren and the photographer and his many climbing companions, foreign and Japanese.
Set of 42 photographs of Japan by American Albert Kane in the 1930s
Albert Kane was an American who traveled to and studied Japan in the 1930s.

Japanese personal photography, 1900-1940

Like in the west, the spread of film cameras helped the more general public afford taking, developing, and printing their own original photographs. Particularly by the 1920s, photography had become normalized in many Japanese households.

Japanese Family Album, 1910-1930
Note: not digitized, link goes to the catalog record.
A collection of 60 photographs from a dis-bound photograph album of a Japanese family. Images show a variety of women and children, as well as locations in Japan.

The Meiji and Taisho Eras in Photographs (The National Diet Library, Japan)
Around 1300 early photographs of Japan made by Japanese photographers and digitized from photograph albums and photo collections.
Early Photography of Japan (Harvard)
A digital collection of 40 photograph albums (more than 2,000 images) with photographs of Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many are souvenir photograph albums of Japanese studio photographs customized by western travelers.

Published photographs of Japan

At the CU Boulder Libraries
Other digital collections

Japanese photographers and publishers

Seven published books by Kazumasa Ogawa
Kazumasa Ogawa was an early pioneer of printing books with photographic reproductions. These works all date from the 1890s and early 1900s.

Famous scenes in Japan by K. Tamamura
Call Number: RBC OS1 DS809 .T36 1900

Publication Date: c. 1900

Note: link goes to a digitized copy.
A published volume with colored photographic reproductions (collotypes) of people and places around Japan. Most locations pictured are in central Japan, noteably Tokyo, Nikko, Mount Fuji, Yokohama, Kamakura, Miyajima, and Kyoto. A number of other images are of people and highlight social life and customs such as games, shops, daily activities, rice cultivation, sumo wrestling, parks, and holidays/celebrations.

Western photographers and publishers

Japan in pictures by Douglas Sladen
Call Number: RBC Scuba DS810 .S52 1904

Publication Date: 1904

Note: link goes to a digitized copy.
In lotus-land Japan by Herbert G. Ponting
Call Number: RBC Wolff DS810 P7 1910 c.2

Publication Date: 1910

Note: link goes to a digitized copy.

East Asia Image Collection (Lafayette College)
A large number of published photographs from Imperial Japan (1868-1945), including postcards, posters, books, etc.

Secondary sources on early photography in Japan

Reflecting Truth: Japanese photography in the nineteenth century by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere; Mikiko Hirayama
Call Number: Norlin - Art and Architecture - TR105 .R44 2004

ISBN: 9074822762

Publication Date: 2004

This publication shows how scholarly investigation of Japanese photography in recent years has entered an important transitional stage moving beyond its focus on the introduction of new discoveries and descriptions of collections, to a more sophisticated investigation of photography in historical and cultural contexts. At one time marginalised as either a practical technique or amateur art form, photography has now earned full recognition as an area of scholarly inquiry. It now invites reflection on issues of visuality, technology, and national identity in Japanese art during its transition to modernity as well as in contemporary society. Contributions by Himeno Junichi (on the early development of photography in Japan), Sebastian Dobson (focussing on the colourful figure of Felice Beato), Luke Gartlan (on Baron Raimond von Stillfried-Ratenicz), Allen Hockley (on photographic albums produced by commercial studios in the 1880s and 1890s), Kinoshita Naoyuki (exploring the tradition of war portraiture in Japan) and Mikiko Hirayama (describing the transition from the pioneering stages of photography in Japan into the modern era).
The Japanese Photobook, 1912-1990 by Manfred Heiting (Editor); Ryuichi Kaneko (Contribution by); Duncan Forbes (Contribution by); Matthew Witkovsky (Contribution by)
Call Number: Norlin - Art and Architecture - TR105 .J365 2017

ISBN: 9783958291768

Publication Date: 2017-08-22

This book illustrates the development of photography as seen in photo publications in Japan--from the time of influence by European and American pictorialism, the German Bauhaus and Imperial military propaganda, to the complete collapse and destruction of the country in 1945. Then followed a new beginning: with the unique self-determination of a young generation of photographers and visual artists highlighted by the "Provoke" style as well as protest and war documentation of the late 1950s to the early '70s, the signature Japanese photobook, as we have come to know it, was born. With detailed information and illustrations of over 500 photo publications, an introduction by Kaneko Ryuichi and essays by Fujimura Satomi, Duncan Forbes, Manfred Heiting, Mitsuda Yuri, Iizawa Kotaro, Shirayama Mari and Takeba Joe, this is the first extensive Englishlanguage survey of Japanese photobooks of this period.
Photography for Everyone by Kerry Ross
ISBN: 9780804795630

Publication Date: 2015

The Japanese passion for photography is almost a cliché, but how did it begin? Although Japanese art photography has been widely studied this book is the first to demonstrate how photography became an everyday activity. Japan's enthusiasm for photography emerged alongside a retail and consumer revolution that marketed products and activities that fit into a modern, tasteful, middle-class lifestyle. Kerry Ross examines the magazines and merchandise promoted to ordinary Japanese people in the early twentieth century that allowed Japanese consumers to participate in that lifestyle, and gave them a powerful tool to define its contours.