Categories
Art Photography

Fujiyama

If you’re looking for a rabbit hole allow me to recommend digital collections of the New York Public Library. Naturally, I headed straight for their Meiji era photos of Japan:

The first daguerreotype camera was imported into Japan in 1848 (the patent dates to 1839). Wet and dry plate photographic processes were introduced into Japan by Dutch photographers stationed on the island of Dejima, in Nagasaki Bay, beginning in the 1850s.

I love how instantly recognisable Fuji is:

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And how similar this is to Hokusai’s view of Fuji from the Tōkaidō, produced some 70-80 years earlier:

fuji36

I wonder if the photographer had that in mind when they created the shot.