Photography history: by Japanese photographer Kazumasa Ogawa, “A Damsel – Maiko cherry blossom time” (ca. 1890), albumin paper, colored, 27 x 20.6 cm, © National Museums in Berlin, Ethnological Museum. #photography #photographyhistory #vintagephotography #Japan

From the Printing Museum, Tokyo: Having been invented in France in the first half of the 19th century, photography arrived in Japan at the end of the Edo era (1603 to 1868), and was used to record a wide range of subjects. Kazumasa Ogawa (aka Kazuma or Isshin) (1860 to 1929) was a photographer who was active in the later half of the Meiji era (1868 to 1912), when photography had spread throughout society. The portrait of Japanese author Souseki Natsume that was formerly featured on the 1,000 yen note was taken by Ogawa. Many people have likely seen Ogawa’s works at one time or another.

Kazumasa Ogawa differed from other photographers in that he not only took photographs, but created and published many printed works through photoengraving. Photoengraving is a method used to make printing plates based on negative and positive principle using photographic technology. It started in Japan during the Meiji era, and continued to be used by printers to make plates. In the Meiji era, long before the arrival of television and radio broadcasting systems, the standard form of mass communication media consisted of printed matter such as newspapers, magazines, and books. Photographic illustrations played a significant role in the growing publication industry.”

By American photographer Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976), Two Callas, 1925, one of her most celebrated and iconic images. #photography #vintagephotography #artphotography #photographyhistory

From the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: “Best known for photographs of flowers in her San Francisco garden taken during the 1920s and 1930s, Imogen Cunningham rejected soft-focus, sentimental imagery in favor of an approach that conveyed, with crystalline clarity, a sensuous delight in nature.”