- English
In 1878, just 19 years after Japan opened it first ports to the world, and a mere ten years after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, an adventurous 47-year old woman from the UK set out to explore the interior of Japan. The country was virtually unknown to Westerners, and a woman traveling only with a guide seemed outrageous. Everybody advised her not to, but she went anyway and wrote this unique and vivid journal of what she saw and experienced.
Read Full Article
Buy now at Amazon!
More book tips
Attributing Vintage Photos from Titles
Nobukuni Enami
Plain block letter style, with breathing room in the black space above and below the letters. Esaki and some others also use the plain block letter style, but the black surround is cut much closer to the letters than with Enami.
Kimbei Kusakabe
Kimbei is distinctive with his thinner block style, the number. (dot / period) and title. There is also a dot at the end.
Adolfo Farsari
Farsari is all Serif Letter+Numbers with Capital Serif letter titles.
Seibei Kajima
Kajima is Serif Numbers followed by Serif Upper and Lower Case Titles.
Kozaburo Tamamura
Although he didn’t do it for all photos, if you see a “No.” prefix, it’s a Tamamura print.
Many of these guys used each other’s images, so you might see the same photo here and there, but each with the distinctive titling of the several different photographers who “shared” the photos.
1 Many thanks to Rob Oechsle for the background information.
OldPhotosJapan.com — a photo blog about old Japan that reads like a book and works like an archive. All the photographs are from the Kjeld Duits Collection and available for licensing at MeijiShowa.com. Use when you need historical photos, maps or illustrations of Japan for your newspaper article, book, documentary, advertising or other project. For questions, contact us.