The Pacific War Photographs of Pfc Glenn W. Eve — "In the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army called up a skinny California boy barely out of his teens. But at 5’9’’ and 125 pounds, Private Glenn W. Eve was deemed unfit for combat.
He might have spent the duration of World War II at a desk, except that he had field skills the Army needed – he was a gifted artist, draftsman and photographer who'd spent the previous four years working for the Walt Disney Co.
In July 1944, they promoted him to private first class (Pfc) and assigned him to the Signal Photo Corps, bound for the Pacific to document the war. This is his collection, never before published. All comments in quotes are Pfc Eve's, written on the back of the photo."
posted by unliteral
on Oct 1, 2012 -
13 comments
"Pretty much all haikyo that contain items related to the building’s past are interesting. On the odd occasion even empty structures are too. But while memory-filled houses and sorry-looking snake centres are fascinating in their own very different ways, there’s arguably something that little bit special about a long-abandoned school."
An abandoned but perfectly preserved Japanese school.
[more inside]
posted by jbickers
on Sep 28, 2011 -
10 comments
The Burns Archive is a collection of over 700,000 historical photographs that document
disturbing subject matter: obsolete medical practices and experiments, death, disease, disasters, crime, revolutions, riots and war. Newsweek posted a
select gallery this past October, as well as a
video interview and walk-through with curator and collector Dr. Stanley B. Burns, a New York opthalmologist.
(Via) (Content at links may be disturbing to some.) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 26, 2011 -
15 comments
Japan Air Raids "is an ongoing project to build a digital archive dedicated to the international dissemination of information about the World War II air raids against Japan." They have seeded it with quite a bit of material (e.g. Target Tokyo, narrated by Ronald Reagan in the
documentary and propaganda section) and promise there is much more to come. [Warning, some images may disturb]
[via]
posted by unliteral
on Dec 12, 2010 -
21 comments
In the 1880s at a time when most Europeans were denied access to the Japanese interior an Italian photographer managed to capture many images of Old Japan. These were then beautifully and realistically hand painted and serve as a remarkable record of a world long since disappeared. Victorian-era photos of Japan.
posted by shakespeherian
on Feb 22, 2010 -
28 comments
Iwase Yoshiyuki "In the late 1920s, young Yoshiyuki received an early Kodak camera as a gift. Since the main livelihood of the town came from the sea, he gravitated there, and soon found a passion for "the simple, even primitive beauty" of
ama – girls and women who harvested seaweed, turban shells and abalone from beneath the coastal waters." "By the late 1960s, they had disappeared. This body of work stands as the final, most comprehensive visual document of the life and work of these divers."
[NSFW] [more inside]
posted by tellurian
on Mar 27, 2008 -
48 comments
A nice
set of photographic glass-plate transparencies depicting life in Japan ca. 1910. These "Yokohama photographs" were sold to foreign tourists between about 1868 and 1912. I found the
Crafts and Trades section most interesting.
posted by Rumple
on Jun 7, 2007 -
18 comments
The old and the new Japan
in one frame. The delicate relationship of Oyako, parent and child. In 1982 American photographer
Bruce Osborn began what has become his lifelong work. For the last 25 years he took pictures of one parent with one child in a white studio setting.
posted by nickyskye
on Feb 1, 2007 -
28 comments
Amazing collection of several galleries full of Japanese "urban ruins" photos, including
abandoned amusement parks,
refineries,
apartment blocks,
hospitals,
schools,
bowling alleys, & much more, including
Battleship Island, the (previously
posted) abandoned coal mining island off the coast of Nagasaki.
Via.
posted by jonson
on Dec 5, 2006 -
34 comments
Howard French - Asia photos Photos from across Asia by Howard French, who works for the New York Times. Includes many photos of the 'Disappearing Shanghai' that is being obliterated by the city's relentless urbanization.
posted by carter
on May 29, 2006 -
6 comments
A Tale of Two Chinas, by photographer
James Whitlow Delano.
Whole
swaths of cities have vanished, to be transformed with developments that have quickly made them look more like Houston, Qatar, or Singapore than
the ancient China of our mind's eye. The old hutong, or alleyways, of Beijing that once formed a mosaic of passageways and the siheyuan, or walled courtyard houses,
have been largely razed. The old brick rowhouses of Shanghai, are now being leveled and replaced by modern high-rises.
Traditional marketplaces, residential neighborhoods, streets where medicine shops or bookstores bunched together,
are now either gone or have been rouged up as tourist destinations, part of a new synthetic, virtual version of China's incredible past.
The energy fueling this transformation bespeaks a powerful but often
blind, unquestioning faith in an inchoate idea of progress that
takes one's breath away, often literally. (Unrestrained growth has left China with the dubious honor of having 9 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world).
Delano's new book
is "
Empire: Impressions from China". More inside.
posted by matteo
on Feb 17, 2005 -
23 comments
Night Windows Gorgeous images of night-time urban Japan (Japanese titles, English alt tags, 1024x768 images available). Includes:
sleeping bullet trains,
trams,
cats,
Tokyo Harbour tunnel,
bridges,
tail lights,
Narita airport,
offices,
Mount Fuji, Tokyo Disneyland (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5), and many more.
posted by carter
on Nov 10, 2004 -
13 comments
Masamania. Not safe for work! 'Hi, this is masamania who create this page, MasaManiA.com. This page is made up of photos I actually take in twon. .I hope I can show and tell you the real, true Japan that cannot be seen in other mas media. I am living in Tokyo, Japan. I was born in Japan, grown up in Japan, study English in Japan. This is the reason I can speak Engrish. Some people complain that my updating and email response is slow. And other people conplain that my englsih is poor. '
posted by plep
on Oct 24, 2004 -
13 comments
Memories of a Dog .
Moriyama Daido's
pictures are
taken in the
streets of Japan's major
cities. Made with a small, hand-held camera, they reveal the speed with which they were
snapped. Often the frame is tilted vertiginously, the grain
pronounced, and the
contrast emphasized. Among his city images are those shot in underlit bars, strip clubs, on the streets or
in alleyways, with the movement of the subject creating
a blurred suggestion of a form (warning: NSFW images if you scroll down the page) rather than a distinct figure.
His best known picture,
Stray Dog, (1971) is taken on the run, in the midst of bustling street activity.
It is an essential reflection of
Moriyama's presence as an alert outsider in his own culture.
Moriyama is also a
toy-camera enthusiast (
his favorite is the
Polga)
. He has worked
in the US, too: "
N.Y. 71".
(more inside)
posted by matteo
on Sep 27, 2004 -
6 comments
