This page is based on an article that appeared in Volume 116 of The PhotoHistorian, The Quarterly of the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society, Summer 1997. The authors are historians and write in an easily readable simple academic style. The presentation of their article is so clear that its readership could span almost all groups of readers. In the article Bennett and Dobson attempt to show that the first photograph of a Japanese subject was done much earlier than was previously thought by scholars and historians of Japanese photography. They provide proof that a Japanese seaman who had been brought to San Francisco together with his capsized crew had had his photograph taken even before Commander Perry's historic mission to Japan.

 The article provides a lot of intrigue in its incredible method of unfolding events and in the significance of its eventual findings. Bennett and Dobson make the findings believable by the way they structure their whole argument in a highly logical yet captivating manner and in the fact that they make very few, if not none, generalizations. Their presentation of the "problem", "breakthrough" and eventual conclusion conveys a high level of maturity at logical historical argument by the artists. In fact, I think they make a good case in attempting to change the historical record regarding the earliest photography of a Japanese subject. They hardly flaw in their writing style and in their argument. The only negative aspect of their writing was in their conclusion, which wasn't as strong as it could have been considering the substance of their argument.

Kevin Immonje