No title (Couple with a cabinet photograph and ghost in background)

The global history of art photography is dominated by various aesthetic styles, but there are interesting regional variances in how the medium is practiced. In Japan, for instance, a form of hand-coloured studio photography gained prominence in the mid 1800s that drew inspiration from the aesthetic conventions and subject matter of the famed ukiyo-e prints, which focused on activities in the liberated pleasure districts outside major Japanese cities.

Widespread interest in photography came relatively late to Japan and coincided with the forcible opening up of the country by trade with the United States in 1854. With the easing of rules prohibiting foreigners from working in Japan, enterprising photographers began to set up businesses in the trading ports, producing images especially for the tourist trade. Interestingly, these European and, eventually, Japanese photographers continued to depict traditional customs with very few showing the widespread impact of modernisation that was transforming the society in the late Edo period.

Their so-called costumes and customs photographs generally fall into various categories such as portraits of geishas, samurai, sumo wrestlers and other notable local types. Photographers also often created distinctive studio sets in which to recreate typical scenes of Japanese life. This photograph is one such example, although what it shows is far from typical. It is a rare example of a shinrei shashin – a ghost photograph. The photograph was taken by the noted Japanese practitioner Kusakabe Kimbei who had worked both with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried before opening his own studio in Yokohama in 1881. Kimbei learnt well from these two major European practitioners, but he also developed his own distinctive approach on studio conventions by taking his photography into even more theatrical territory.

Text © National Gallery of Victoria, Australia