In 1974, Japanese Photographer Captured His Wife Every Morning From the Window of Their Apartment as She Left for Work

“From Window” by Masahisa Fukase (1974) is a series of photographs capturing his then-wife, Yoko Wanibe, leaving for work each day from their apartment in Tokyo. Taken from their window, the images show Yoko in various moods and poses, blurring the lines between real life and performance. This series showcases their life together and highlights how being constantly photographed affected their relationship.

Fukase obsessively photographed the people (and cats) around him, expressions of love which wound up as destructive. As Fukase confessed in 1982, he became plagued by the paradox of “being with others just to photograph them,” resulting in a profound, existential loneliness as his compulsive shooting of those close to him ended up driving them away. “He has only seen me through the lens,” Yoko said bitterly of her snap-happy husband. “I believe that all the photographs of me were unquestionably photographs of himself.”

Convinced that Fukase was with her solely for the sake of photography, Yoko signed divorce papers in 1976, plunging the photographer into a deep and dark depression. Although a persistent elegiac impulse throbbed throughout Fukase’s practice thereafter, From Window stands as a brilliant and high-spirited tale of one man’s all-consuming love. As for Yoko, she is as bright as ever: off to work, slowly slipping out of Fukase’s grip, belonging – as she does – to no one.

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40 Vintage Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Fukuoka Just After Surrender of Japan

In late 1945, Fukuoka was recovering from heavy bombing during World War II. The city had been struck by multiple air raids, including a major attack in July, which caused widespread destruction of infrastructure, homes, and industries.

Following Japan’s surrender in August 1945, the country was under Allied occupation, with the U.S. military overseeing the rebuilding process. Fukuoka, like much of Japan, faced severe shortages of food and resources, and its economy was in disarray after years of war.

These fascinating photos from m20wc51 were taken by Lt. Krueger, who was in charge of a photo lab on a 38th Bomb Group airbase near Fukuoka, Japan in late 1945 and early 1946.

Fukuoka street scenes, Japan

Fukuoka street scenes, Japan

Fukuoka street scenes, Japan

Air raid shelter, Fukuoka, Japan

American Plymouth wrecked and junked by Japanese, Fukuoka, Japan

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Inside a Bar in Yokohama in the Early 1960s Through Beautiful Found Photos

In the 1960s, Yokohama was a city undergoing rapid transformation. As Japan’s second-largest city, it played a key role in the nation's post-war economic boom. The port of Yokohama was vital for trade and industry, especially in shipbuilding and manufacturing. The city also saw significant infrastructure development, including the completion of the Yokohama Bay Bridge in 1964.

Culturally, Yokohama retained its international character, with neighborhoods like Yamate reflecting Western influence. The 1960s also saw the rise of youth subcultures, shaped by global trends in music and fashion, further marking the city’s modernization and cosmopolitanism.

Here below is a small set of found photos that shows inside a bar in Yokohama, Japan on February 16, 1961.

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Extraordinary Black and White Photos Captured Winter Scenes in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s

Asano Kiichi (1914–1993) was born in Kameoka, a rural farming community in Kyoto Prefecture, at an early age Asano’s family relocated to Kyoto City and opened a confectionery shop while he was in grade school. Kyoto was to become Asano’s permanent home and growing up there he was heavily influenced by Kyoto’s arts and traditions.

His passion with photography began while in high school when he saved up enough money to buy a camera. Soon after he began photographing Kyoto, a subject that became his lifelong obsession. This was when historical Kyoto was being transformed into a modern city and Asano documented it’s old ways which were rapidly fading away.

In the 1950s he did his most important work including essays on Kyoto’s geisha in the Gion district and an essay on Japan’s snow country which was also intended to record a disappearing way of life. For this Asano spent three years photographing rural life and traditions in Echigo, Noto, and the Tohoku regions.

Throughout his life he received many awards and citations and was a lifetime member of the Japan Professional Photographer's Society. He also published several books including; Snow Country, Nihon No Sakura, Invitation to Japanese Gardens, and the multi book set Splendors of Kyoto Through the Year. His works are held in the permanent collections of many museums including the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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Gorgeous Japanese ‘Teen Look’ Magazine Covers Illustrated by Okamoto Satsuko From the 1960s

Teen Look is a weekly magazine produced for junior and senior high school girls and was sold for 80 Japanese yen per copy in the 1960s. Using primary colors and minimalistic patterns, Satsuko Okamoto illustrated the fresh, and youthful fashion trends among Japanese teenage girls in the magazine covers as Japan moves into the era of modernism.

Satsuko Okamoto was born in 1945 in Nagamura (now Ueda City), Nagano Prefecture. She made her debut as a picture book artist with the picture book Obake Dandelion, and has worked extensively as an illustrator for picture books and children’s books, as well as a stage costume designer.

One of her best-known works, the Grandma Kagi series, is a warm story about children who have lost the key to their house and the grandmother who stands by them. Since the first book in 1976 a total of 20 works have been created, and the soft, gentle colors and detailed depictions of tools and other objects have given children dreams and tenderness.

Display here are some gorgeous cover illustrated by Sachiko Okamoto for Teen Look magazine from the 1960s:

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30 Beautiful Hand-Colored Photos of Ponta and Oen, the Two Popular Geisha in the Late 1890s

Ponta and Oen were popular Geisha during the 1890s and early 1900s. Many of these images were taken between 1895-1897 at Genrokukan Studio in Tokyo, run by Kajima Seibei (who became Ponta’s husband) and his brother, Seizaburo (Oen’s partner at the time).

Most of these images are from postcards published in Japan and the USA between 1900-1918. The majority of them are hand-colored collotypes.

"Teaching Songs", photo by Kajima Seibei, taken at his Genrokukan Studio, Tokyo, circa 1895-96. Geisha Ponta is seated at right

Geisha Oen and friend, photo taken at Kajima Seibei's Genrokukan Studio in Tokyo, 1895-97

Geisha Oen and friend, photo taken at Kajima Seibei's Genrokukan Studio in Tokyo, 1895-97

Geisha Oen and Ponta with a kakejiku (scroll), photo taken at Kajima Seibei's Genrokukan Studio in Tokyo, 1895-97

Geisha Oen with a drum, photo probably by Kajima Seibei at his Genrokukan Studio in Tokyo, circa 1895

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Smallpox Illustration, Japanese Manuscript, ca. 1720

Watercolor illustration from a Japanese work on smallpox entitled Toshin seiyo [The essentials of smallpox] consisting of a manuscript in two volumes. It contains numerous colored illustrations of different symptoms of smallpox, which were executed on separate sheets of paper: they were then cut out and pasted into place.

According to the beginning of book two, the author was Kanda Gensen (c.1670–1746) and the text was edited and supplemented by one Enokimoto Gensho, whose dates are unknown and about whom all that is known is that he practiced medicine. Kanda was a doctor who is known for his illustrated explanatory works on natural science and materia medica.

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Photos of Toyota 2000GT Assembly Line in the Late 1960s

The 2000GT was very important for Toyota Motor Company because it proved to the world that they could produce sports cars not just grocery getter’s. The design was done by Raymond Loewy of Yamaha, with a body comprised of aluminum and a 2.0L straight six; transformed by Yamaha with double overhead cams to produce 150HP.

First displayed to the public at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1965, the 2000GT was manufactured under contract by Yamaha between 1967 and 1970. A halo car for the automaker, in Japan it was exclusive to Toyota’s Japanese retail sales channel called Toyota Store.

The 2000GT revolutionized the automotive world’s view of Japan, then viewed as a producer of imitative and stodgily practical vehicles. As a sleek, high-performance fastback coupé, it demonstrated its auto makers could produce a sports car to rival the better marques of Europe. Reviewing a pre-production 2000GT in 1967, Road & Track magazine summed up the car as “one of the most exciting and enjoyable cars we’ve driven,” and compared it favorably to the Porsche 911.

Only 337 regular production units of the 2000GT were built, figures comparable to contemporary elite Italian supercars, and according to Toyota 337 were sold. The first prototype was built in August 1965, only 11 months after the project had begun. Taking two years for production vehicles to finally emerge, a total of 233 MF10s, 109 MF10Ls, and nine MF12Ls were built at the Yamaha factory in Iwata, Shizuoka according to Toyota and Yamaha data, starting in May 1967 until August 1970.

In America, a 1968 2000GT listed for about US$7,150 ($63,000 in today dollars), a moderately higher price than competitors like the $5,539 Jaguar E-Type or the $6,790 Porsche 911S, though much lower than exotics like the $19,700 Ferrari 365 GTB/4. Toyota did not sell very many of the cars, which led to its cancellation in 1970, while it did inspire the company to introduce performance oriented “sporty” coupes that followed in the 1970s.

As a “halo car” for Toyota, it is believed that no profit was made on the 2000GT despite its high price. About 60 units reached North America and the others were similarly thinly spread worldwide. Most 2000GTs were painted either Solar Red or Pegasus White, while other colors were offered such as Thunder Silver metallic, Bellatrix Yellow, Atlantis Green, and Twilight Turquoise metallic. Today, the 2000GT is seen as the first seriously collectible Japanese car and its first supercar. Examples of the 2000GT have sold at auction for as much as US$1,200,000 in 2013.

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Portraits of Young Japanese Women at Kabukicho, Shinjuku’s Red Light District in Tokyo From the 1960s and 1970s

Katsumi Watanabe (1941–2006) is probably best known for his work in Shinjuku’s red light district, Kabukicho, in Tokyo. Between 1966 and 1980 he took hundreds of black-and-white portraits, capturing the sex workers, dancers, drag queens, and yakuza members who frequented Kabukicho by night. The images are stark and frank in their monochrome, captured under the impact of a strobe flash.

Born in 1941, Watanabe is one of Japan’s most iconic photographers. An itinerant portrait photographer, throughout his career he worked primarily in Shinjuku in Tokyo, making a living from selling his portraits back to his subjects for a modest sum. It was in the 1970s that the photographer began to receive critical acclaim, with other iconic artists such as Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki hailing him as one of the nation’s great talents.

Born just before the end of the Second World War, Watanabe saw the fall and the re-birth of the district that he documented. Razed to the ground in 1945 following an air raid, Kabukicho was quickly redeveloped after the war’s end, mostly thanks to foreign investment. In the wake of the war, the district became populated by cabarets, Chinese restaurants, love hotels, theaters, and discos.

Surrounded by the eccentricities of the district, Katsumi Watanabe was reportedly a quiet and unassuming character, yet the tenacity of his photos is frank and confrontational.

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Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan: The Oldest Hotel in the World

Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan is an onsen—a Japanese hot spring spa—in the Yamanashi Prefecture. Founded in 705 by Fujiwara Mahito, it is a prime example of shinise (“long-established business”) and perhaps the oldest independent company in operation following the acquisition of construction company Kongō Gumi in 2006.

The history of the Keiunkan inn dates back 1300 years to the year 705AD (the 2nd year of the Keiun era), when Fujiwara Mahito founded the inn. Because it was founded in the Keiun era, the inn was thus named Keiunkan. The hot spring has flowed freely without interruption since then and is loved by many townsfolk, military commanders and cultured peoples as a secluded place deep in the mountains of the Kai region.

In 2011, the Keiunkan was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest hotel in the world despite the hotel facilities on site being only a few decades old.

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