Kerry Ross, Photography for Everyone: The Cultural Lives of Cameras and Consumers in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Abstract

During the early decades of the twentieth century, before Canon and Nikon became global brands—and long before photographers such as Moriyama Daidō and Araki Nobuyoshi rose to prominence in the eyes of critics and curators across the world—a vibrant culture of amateur photography had already emerged in Japan. Kerry Ross's Photography for Everyone introduces readers to the world that pre-1945 Japanese amateur photographers would have encountered, going into the shops where they bought their cameras and beyond. It is a welcome addition to the historiography of Japanese photography, which, as Ross points out, has tended to focus on art photography and works of major auteurs. Instead, this book seeks to highlight the significance not only of amateur photography, but also of processes such as camera production, retail, and marketing in the making of Japan's photographic culture (3–5). By focusing on the overwhelmingly male-dominated world of amateur photography in prewar Japan, Photography for Everyone also draws our attention to the ways in which camera makers, retailers, and publishers envisioned middle-class, male consumers during a historical period that has been better known for the rise of their female counterparts.