Japanese photographer, printer and publisher
Ogawa Kazumasa
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circa 1913
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Born
| 原田朝之助
(
1860-09-29
)
September 29, 1860
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Died
| September 6, 1929
(1929-09-06)
(aged 68)
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Nationality
|
Japan
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Other names
| Ogawa Kazuma, Ogawa Isshin
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Occupation(s)
| photographer, printer, and publisher
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Ogawa Kazumasa
(
小川 一眞
[1]
, September 29, 1860 ? September 6, 1929)
, also known as
Ogawa Kazuma
or
Ogawa Isshin
, was a
Japanese
photographer
, printer and publisher who was a pioneer in
photomechanical printing
and photography in the
Meiji era
.
Life
[
edit
]
Ogawa was born in
Saitama
to the
Matsudaira
samurai
clan. He started studying
English
and
photography
at the age of 15 under
Yoshiwara Hideo
, then in 1880, he moved to
Tokyo
in order to further hone his English language skills. One year later, Ogawa was hired as an interpreter in the
Yokohama
Police Department, while learning photography from
Shimooka Renj?
in Yokohama.
In 1882, he moved to
Boston
where he took courses in
portrait photography
and the
dry plate process
. He also studied
collotype
printing in
Albert Type Company
.
Upon his return to Japan in 1884, Ogawa opened a photographic studio in
Iidabashi
(
K?jimachi
), the first in Tokyo. Four years later, he established the Tsukiji Kampan Seiz? Kaisha (
築地乾板製造?社
Tsukiji
dry plate
manufacturing company), which manufactured dry plates for use by photographers. In 1889, he set up Japan's first collotype business, the Ogawa Shashin Seihan jo (
小川??製版所
), also referred to as the K. Ogawa printing factory. In the same year, Ogawa worked as an editor for
Shashin Shinp?
(
??新報
, lit. Photography journal), the only photographic journal available at the time, as well as for
Kokka
magazine (
?華
, lit. National flower). He printed both magazines using the
collotype
printing process.
In 1886 he travelled to Seoul in Korea and to Incheon. He photographed scenes of cityscapes, palaces and everyday life. These are uncoloured images and illustrate the progress in his techniques.
Ogawa was a founding member of the
Japan Photographic Society
, which gathered photography amateurs from all around Japan. In 1891, he was charged with taking 100 pictures of Tokyo's most attractive
geisha
, to commemorate the opening of the
Ry?unkaku
.
[2]
In 1894, he met the writer
Alicia Little
who was visiting Japan from her home in China. She was already a published author and she had a diary that she had written. Ogawa supplied photographs and it was published as
My Diary in a Chinese Farm
. The book described their stay on a farm near the Yangtze River as they avoided the summer heat at their home in
Chongqing
.
[3]
Notes
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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