Selling Portrait Photographs: Early Photographic Business in Asakusa, Japan

Abstract

This article offers a case study of the process that shaped popular understanding of photographic practice, technology and images in early Meiji (1868–88) Japan. Specifically, I argue that the neighbourhood of Asakusa – a space already codified as one of transformation and performance, of ‘play and prayer’ – lent itself to the business of photographic studios and provided a rich backdrop to the dynamic production and consumption of photographic objects that were unlike those found elsewhere in the new capital of Tokyo.