Camera Mainichi カメラ毎日
June 1954 - April 1985
Monthly
Founding Publisher: Mainichi Shimbunsha ( Tokyo)
Founding Editor: Inoue Sōjirō
18,3 x 25,8 cm, B5 size
Camera Mainichi, with its newspaper publisher Mainichi Shimbunsha, can be regarded as a ‘newspaper-based camera magazine’ .
As Ivan Vartanian writes in his introduction in Japanese Photography Magazines 1880s-1980s* ; ‘mainstream photography magazines in the postwar era fell into either one of two categories: newspaper-based camera magazines (Camera Mainichi, Asahi Camera and Sankei Camera) and publishers specializing in camera magazines ( Camera, Nippon Camera, Photo Art )
With photo contests, news and reviews of camera equipment, Camera Mainichi was also aiming at the amateur photographers, just as its fellow camera magazines, but with its relative late introduction on the market, they tried to give the magazine a small twist.
At it’s launch, Robert Capa, a star in Japan thanks to his work in ‘Life’, was invited and do the promotional campaign, which lead to a long standing contract with the international photographic agency Magnum, featuring the work of their photographers, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
In that perspective, more than the camera-based magazines, Camera Mainichi leaned toward reportage and documentary photography.
In those early years, Camera Mainichi had also a co-publishing arrangement with the American magazine ‘Popular Photography’.
A big change came in 1963, when Kanazawa Yusuke became the editor-in-chief and made Yamagishi Shōji responsible for the gravure pages in the first section of the magazine and so created space for first-rate and unconventional photography, launching the carriers of a new generation of young photographers.
Yamagishi's unconventional approach made Camera Mainichi the leading magazine.
Yamagishi had joined the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun in 1950 as a cameraman, and then moved to Camera Mainichi as an editor in 1958. Kishi Tetsuo was the editor-in-chief and in charge for the main section, selecting the established photographers as Domon Ken, while Yamagishi Shōji did the editing of the not well known photographers.
After Yamagishi left in 1978, the magazine lost his innovative character. Sales declined and with Nishii Kazuo as the last editor, it ceased publication in April 1985
Along with Asahi Camera and Nippon Camera, Camera Mainichi became known as ‘the big three’.
* Japanese Photography Magazines, 1880s - 1980s
by Kaneko Ryūichi, Toda Masako, Ivan Vartanian
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Goliga books 2022
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Nakamura Yoshinobu ; Hidden Christians of Ikitsuki Island 5 pages
'An hour and a half away from Hirado in Nagasaki prefecture on a cruise ship, the isolated island of Ikitsuki island in the east china sea has been home to a group of ‘hidden christians’ who have been worshipping Santa Maria for 30 years escaping the oppression of the Tokukawa shogunate. As a photographer I was allowed to photograph pagans for the first time, but due to strict restrictions and guards, i was unable to take enough pictures, but i did my best to document.'
Born in Naoshima, Kagawa in 1925, Nakamura's father was one of the last Amimotos in Naoshima. He grew up looking at the Seto Inland Sea from an early age and continued to take amateur photography even after working at the Mitsubishi Smelter and studied under Yoichi Midorikawa, a leading photographer of the Seto Inland Sea. After passing the age of 30, he became a professional photographer and started "Travel in the Seto Inland Sea" and "Citizens of the Seto", depicting the local climate and culture through photographs.
His "Ama" has left a meaningful work that conveys the fading Japanese folk.
Seto Island Sea is the first personal work published in 1959.
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Tomatsu Shōmei, Deserted park. Also translated as abandoned garden or ruinous garden.
5 pages.
To my knowledge this is the first publication in color by Tomatsu.
He used to work in black and white, but during a long stay in Okinawa, around 1970, he switched to color photography, and after that never returned to monochrome.
Also uncommon for Tomatsu here is the use of a large format camera.
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Nagano Shigeichi, A nuclear submarine is coming, 6 pages b&w (final episode of the serial)
Protest against the visit of a nuclear submarine to the U.S. Navy base in Sasebo.
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Fallen Angel (Shita Dashi Tenshi - 舌出し天使 )* appeared in the April 1965 issue of Camera Mainichi. A collaboration between Tatsuki Yoshihiro, a budding advertising photographer, and the poet Terayama Shūji, Fallen Angel marked an important turning point in both the history of Japan’s editorial design and photography.
(….)
Camera Mainichi, which had been a news-orientated publication, started to regularly feature the work of young advertisement photographers,
Editor Yamagishi Shōji was responsible for this shift, and with Fallen Angel he set a new standard for what was possible in a camera magazine.
This issue’s cover reads, “Appendix: Tatsuki Yoshihiro’s photobook Fallen Angel”. This special feature was tantamount to an entire photobook. Its scale in the magazine was unprecedented, encompassing fifty-six pages , with lay-out by Wada Makoto and commentary by Kusamori Shin’ichi.
(……)
This is just a small selection of the excellent essay about this issue by Toda Masako in Japanese Photography Magazines 1880s-1980s, Goliga Books 2022
* Note by Ivan Vartanian in his newsletter October 2020 about Tatsuki Yoshihiro:
舌出し天使 (translated to Fallen Angel) focused on a young woman being emotive and playful for the camera. In many instances, she short crop and somewhat androdyous build make her seem that much younger. The original Japanese title shita dashi tenshi translates literally to an ‘angel sticking out its tongue’ , which underscores better the youthful charge of the photography (as opposed to the more lyrical translation that was made at the time).
https://goliga.com/newsletter/tatsuki-selfie
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It is important to note that this work was not an excerpt from an exhibition or the digest of an extant photobook; rather, it was shot specifically for these spreads. ( Toda Masako in Japanese Photography Magazines 1880s-1980s )
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Eventually, in 1971, a selection of Fallen Angel, along with 2 other series, was published by Chuo Koronsha in ‘The Image Today Series’.
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next to come: