Kimura Ihee (b. 1901) began his career as a photographer in the 1920's, documenting daily life in Tokyo's old downtown, or Shitamachi, areas. He continued this work in the postwar era. At left, in a photo taken in 1945, vendors and buyers line up along a bombed-out road in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, to sell goods. Note the two American GI's on the far left. While the government tried to control distribution after the war, black markets proliferated amid the general economic confusion.

From Tanuma Takeyoshi, ed., Kimura Ihee no shôwa (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobô, 1990) 44-45.

American troops and Japanese children were a common subject for photojournalists in the postwar period. 1945.

Kimura Ihee no shôwa 49.

Strip shows were a novel form of entertainment which attracted much attention in the postwar period. 1951.

Kimura Ihee no shôwa 96.

 Photo of a satsueikai, or amateur photography shoot. Amateur photography grew in popularity in the postwar period.

Kimura Ihee no shôwa 118.

 Photographer unidentified. American soldiers photograph a Japanese woman in a kimono in occupied Japan. From the MacArthur Memorial archives.

From John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999) 137.

 Horace Bristol (b.1908) was a photographer for Life, Fortune, and other American magazines. His photographs taken during the Occupation show a particular interest in the relationship between his Japanese subjects and the new visual and material culture funneling into Japan from America. At left is Bristol's photo "'Angel of the Night' Waiting for Customer in Tokyo Subway." 1946.

From Mark Sandler, ed. The Confusion Era: Art and Culture of Japan During the Allied Occupation, 1945-1952 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997) 14.

 "Two Little Boys Admiring Poster," Tokyo, 1947.

From The Confusion Era 14.

 Tômatsu Shômei (1930 - ) grew up while Japan was at war and anti-American propaganda was at its height. He entered his teens as the occupation began and an American base was established in his home town. Photographs which comment on life around the American bases, and photos which document the aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki are two central aspects of Tômatsu's ouevre. The photograph at left, "Time stopped at 11:02, 1945" shows a watch stopped at the moment that the atomic bomb exploded above Nagasaki on the morning of August 9, 1945. The photograph was taken in 1961, over a decade later.

From Mark Holbern, Black Sun: The Eyes of Four: Roots and Innovation in Japanese Photography (New York: Aperture, 1986) 34.

"The terror of that August [1945] is experiencing the weathering effect of time and is eroding. We are unable to stop its steady advance. Moreover, we must resist the natural erosion that memory is subject to . We must build a dam against the flow of time." --Tômatsu Shômei, quoted in Black Sun 33.

 "Nagasaki" 1962.

Black Sun 38.

 "Melted beer bottle after the atomic explosion, 1945" 1961.

Black Sun 39.

 "Statue of a saint that was beheaded by the atomic explosion" 1961.

Nagasaki had one of the largest Christian communities in Japan; this community suffered some of the greatest losses in the atomic bombing.

Black Sun, 36.

 "Protest, Tokyo" 1967.

Black Sun 44.

 "Eros" 1969.

Black Sun 46.