PHOTOGRAPH
Vintage photographs
Among these cultural resources was photography as a manifestation of a world that was rapidly disappearing, as expressed during his stay in Japan by the Italian photographer Felice Beato, considered the father of Japanese photography, and by the rest of the Western artists who left a record of Japanese society. The Japanese photographer Shiro Ichiki produced the first daguerreotype portrait of the feudal prince Satsuma in 1857. Photography aroused great interest among all social castes in Japan, and numerous studios were opened by local photographers, such as the famous Hikoma Ueno and Shimoka Renjo, who opened their studios in Nagasaki and Yokohama in 1862. The enormous importance of the Japanese ukiyo-e printmaking technique was to form the basis of Japanese photography through its themes, framing, characters and scenes, with the ukiyo-e style colouring of photographs taking the place of engravings throughout the 19th century. It was this artistic medium that showed the transformation that took place in Japanese society after its opening up to the West.
The first Japanese photographers were undoubtedly fascinated by ukiyo pictures, as evidenced by their choice of themes, use of framing and colouring after printing. In fact, specialised painters coloured the photographs by hand to imitate the popular multicolour prints of woodblock artists.
Thus, although it replaced ukiyo-e to a large extent, photography became one of the principal means of preserving the new Japan for all eternity.
