Photographing Japan in the Japan-Russo War Period: H. G. Ponting’s Expression of Japan (78695)
Session Chair: Jiehua Cai
Sunday, 26 May 2024 14:50
Session: Session 4
Room: Room 707
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Herbert George Ponting (1870-1935) was born in Britain and became active as a photographer in Britain and the United States. Not only does he take pictures, he writes illustrated articles to magazines. He is famous for his works taken at the Terra Nova Expedition's Antarctic winter camp in 1911 because of his cinematography and the uniqueness of the place. Before he went to the Antarctic, he had traveled Asia including China, Korea, and Japan between 1901 and 1906 and published two photo albums; Fuji-San (1905) and Japanese Studies (1906). Four years after he returned to Europe, he combined the two albums and added photographs and produced a travelogue In Lotus-Land Japan (1910). It is worthy of note that he recorded his journey in many ways; photo albums, individual photographs, cinemagraphs, and travelogues. Pointing expresses the journey differently. For example, he does not explain what he took except for an introduction in Fuji-San, while he described the travel in In Lotus-Land Japan which has almost 400 pages. This variation of record indicates there was a demand for information about Japan, and he provided it from various stances. Therefore, comparing these works would illuminate what readers want to see about Japan and how Ponting met their demands. This paper discusses what object Ponting adopted for his works and how they are explained with words to discuss his strategy to create images of the country at the period during Japan-Rosso war.
Authors:
Yuki Shimizu, Tsuda University, Japan
About the Presenter(s)
Ms Yuki Shimizu is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Tsuda University in Japan
See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule
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