Photo Times (フォトタイムス) was a Japanese monthly photography magazine published in Tokyo from 1924 until December 1940.^[1] It introduced recent European and American photography to Japanese readers and became one of the principal magazines in which debates on zen'ei shashin (avant-garde photography) were conducted in late-1930s Japan.^[2][3][4] In 1941, amid wartime consolidation of photographic periodicals, it was renamed Hodo Shashin (報道写真).^[5]

Photo Times was launched in 1924, with Sen'ichi Kimura serving as editor-in-chief in its early years.^[2] From the May 1929 issue, Kimura established the "Modern Photo Section" (モダーン・フォトセクション), a regular feature devoted to introducing recent developments in European and American photography.^[2] After Kimura left the magazine, the section continued under the next editor-in-chief, Tamura Sakae, and also carried contributions by writers such as Date Yoshio, Shimizu Hikaru, and Horino Masao.^[2]

Fujimura also notes that, after Kimura's 1931-1932 trip to Europe and the United States, Photo Times reproduced works he had acquired abroad and ran his serialized "Obei shisatsu ryokoki" ("Travel notes from a tour of Europe and America") from December 1931 to March 1934.^[2] The National Diet Library records the magazine as a monthly periodical published in Tokyo by Photo Times-sha, with the title continuing through volume 17, number 12 (December 1940).^[1]

Later museum sources have emphasized the magazine's importance as a vehicle for the introduction of foreign photography into Japan.^[2][3] Tokyo Photographic Art Museum notes that the gravure pages and overseas features of Photo Times, alongside other photography magazines, introduced foreign photographers such as Eugène Atget and Man Ray to Japanese readers in the 1930s.^[3] Fujimura further records that the "Modern Photo Section" introduced figures including Man Ray, Lee Miller, Charles Sheeler, and Herbert Bayer in 1932–1933.^[2]

In this respect, Photo Times was more than a trade periodical for photographers. It belonged to the print culture through which modernist photography from Europe and the United States entered Japanese photographic discourse in the interwar period.^[2][3]

From 1938 onward, Photo Times became a major venue for the discussion of avant-garde photography.^[4][5] The 2023 checklist for the Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design exhibition "The Spirit of 'Avant-Garde' Photography" records a concentrated sequence of essays and roundtables in the magazine, including Shūzō Takiguchi's "Shashin to chogenjitsushugi" ("Photography and Surrealism") in February 1938, "Shashin to kaiga no koryu" ("The Interchange Between Photography and Painting") in May 1938, "Buttai to shashin: toku ni shururearisumu no obuje ni tsuite" ("Objects and Photography: Especially on the Surrealist Object") in August 1938, and "Zen'ei shashin shiron" ("A Trial Essay on Avant-Garde Photography") in November 1938.^[4]

The same checklist also records the symposium "Zen'ei shashin zadankai" ("Avant-Garde Photography Roundtable") in the September 1938 issue, as well as later texts by Takiguchi such as "Shashin no zokeiteki yoso ni tsuite" ("On the Plastic Elements of Photography") in May 1939 and "Shashin to zokeisei no saikento" ("Reconsidering Photography and Plasticity") in November 1940.^[4] Other items documented in the same source show that the magazine carried both theoretical texts and reproductions of experimental work by figures such as Abe Yoshifumi and Nagata Isshu.^[4]

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum has also identified the Avant-Garde Photography Association as having been founded in 1938 with the support of Photo Times, and states that Takiguchi continued publishing essays on photography in and around the magazine through 1940.^[5]

Although published in Tokyo, Photo Times also intersected with regional avant-garde circles, especially those in Nagoya.^[3] Tokyo Photographic Art Museum states that the photography section of the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club became independent in 1939 as Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde, and that the poet-photographer Kansuke Yamamoto participated in the group.^[3] The same source identifies Minoru Sakata as a central figure in the Nagoya milieu, noting that he developed his photographic theory in magazines such as Photo Times and Camera Art.^[3]

This Nagoya context has also been placed within the broader history of Surrealism under wartime pressure. Surrealism Beyond Borders states that Yoru no Funsui, the Surrealist poetry journal launched by Yamamoto in 1938, was banned in 1939; that the Nagoya Avant-Garde Club, formed in 1937, was dismantled; and that the photographic offshoot founded in 1939 was renamed the Nagoya Photography Culture Association in 1940 before being dissolved in 1941.^[6]

Photo Times intersected directly with Yamamoto's career in 1940. Ryūichi Kaneko notes that Minoru Sakata's article "Shashin o suishin suru hitobito: Yamamoto Kansuke-shi" ("People promoting photography: Mr. Kansuke Yamamoto") appeared in the July 1940 issue and introduced Yamamoto's work, including Garan no torikago (Buddhist Temple's Birdcage).^[7] Kaneko cites Sakata's characterization of Yamamoto's attitude toward photography as that of "a poet of silver bromide".^[7] A later survey exhibition on Surrealism in Japan likewise states that Yamamoto's work was introduced in Photo Times and repeats Sakata's description of him as "a poet of silver bromide".^[8]

For Yamamoto scholarship, the magazine is therefore important not only as a general photography periodical but also as one of the printed sites in which Nagoya-based Surrealist photography entered a broader national circuit.^[3][7][8]

Even while it remained a venue for experimental photography, the magazine increasingly reflected the changing priorities of wartime visual culture.^[4][5] The Toyama checklist records roundtables such as "Tairiku to shashin no zadankai" ("Roundtable on the Continent and Photography") in June 1939 and "Tairiku genchi hokoku zadankai" ("Roundtable on Reports from the Continent") in March 1940, indicating the growing presence of continental and reportage-oriented subject matter in its pages.^[4]

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum also notes that the magazine supported the formation of the Seinen Hodo Shashin Kenkyukai (Youth Reportage Photography Research Association), whose members included photographers such as Ken Domon, Shihachi Fujimoto, and Hiroshi Hamaya.^[5] In 1941, during wartime consolidation of photography magazines, Photo Times was renamed Hodo Shashin.^[1][5]

Later museum exhibitions and documentary projects have repeatedly used surviving issues of Photo Times to reconstruct the short-lived history of Japanese avant-garde photography in the 1930s and early 1940s.^[3][4] In such accounts, the magazine has been treated as a key printed site in which foreign photography, avant-garde theory, regional club activity, and the wartime redirection of photographic culture can all be traced in a single periodical.^[3][5][4]

• Photography in Japan
• Surrealism in Japan
• Nagoya Photo Avant-Garde
• Yoru no Funsui
• Kansuke Yamamoto (artist)

• Stojković, Jelena (2020). Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan: The Impossible Avant-Garde. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781788314053.
• Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2022). アヴァンギャルド勃興――近代日本の前衛写真 [Avant-Garde Rising: The Photographic Vanguard in Modern Japan] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai. ISBN 9784336073679.
• Kaneko, Ryūichi; Toda, Masako; Vartanian, Ivan (2024). 日本写真史 : 写真雑誌1874-1985 [Japanese Photography History: Photography Magazines, 1874-1985] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Heibonsha. ISBN 9784582231335.