About This Image

This image showing steaming vats of brewing sake is from Bunka Shashin-shu, the magazine published by the Tokyo-based photo group Shashin Bunka Kyokai. The group held regular juried exhibitions that included work by leading Japanese pictorialists of the 1920s. Top selections were published in their magazine. This is plate 14 from volume 2.

A different image by Shimamura is published in the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography catalog, "The Pictorial Landscape in Japanese Photography," p.92.

Shimamura is referenced in Anne Tucker's "The History of Japanese Photography" 2003 p. 359

Shimamura (1890-1944) was a photographer from Wakayama. He was a founding member of the Mokkoku Photography Group (Mokkoku Shayukai) in 1912, and had a considerable reputation for his photographic technique. He served on the board of the All-Japan Association of Photographic Societies, and was a leading member of the Japanese Photographic Society (founded by Shinzo Fukuhara). He was known for his landscapes that express " light within its harmony" (in Fukuhara's famous phrase).