Photography comes to Japan

The first photographs taken in japan were by Eliphalet Brown Jr., a painter and photographer brought to Japan by Commodore Matthew C. Perry on his second journey in 1854 to negotiate the opening of the country to the West.

The first documentation of photography in Japan was written by Ueno Toshinojo, an merchant from Nagasaki, in 1848.  A daguerreotype was purchased and delivered by Ueno to the Satsuma domain.  The Satsuma domain was extremely interested in Western learning and technology because the domain rulers thought increasing their military and economic power to be a matter of great urgency.

Nagasaki as a Center of Photography