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Photographs of 19th Century Japan

(cosmographia.substack.com)
444 points merothwell | 2 comments | 09 Apr 25 12:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.017s | source
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hoseyor ◴[10 Apr 25 02:24 UTC] No.43640040[source]▶
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tokioyoyo ◴[10 Apr 25 02:56 UTC] No.43640197[source]▶
You’re really underplaying how awful the life was for an average person in before-times. Sure, pretty buildings, different cultures, and etc. were more prominent. But also an average person would never be able to enjoy those in their lifetimes.
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FalseNutrition ◴[10 Apr 25 13:12 UTC] No.43643436[source]▶
I'm not buying this. All these claims rely on some nebulous "poor people" who were kept hidden away somewhere. There is no good reason to doubt that these photos show regular people, and the buildings they lived in.
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1. ben_w ◴[10 Apr 25 13:36 UTC] No.43643640[source]▶
Mm. When I go on holiday, I take notice of mundane things in the new place that are different to mundane things in my normal life. Street furniture, pylons, graffiti, the contents of supermarket shelves, dusty unpaved roads[0].

But over the years I have come to realise that I'm very odd.

When you go on holiday, how many photos do you take of regular people, vs. tourist attractions? Or, in reverse, do you know regular people[1] who often find tourists visiting their area like to take photos of their homes?

[0] When I visited Nairobi a decade back, one of my photos was along the lines of this Google Street View image: https://www.google.com/maps/@-1.2811367,36.9148575,3a,75y,17...

[1] This site being what it is, there's a decent chance you know someone world-famous and people do actually want photos of their home. They're not "regular people".

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2. WalterBright ◴[10 Apr 25 17:20 UTC] No.43646086[source]▶
My dad took quite a few pictures of everyday life in Japan after WW2, including everyday life on the military bases.

The same during the Korean War he was a pilot in.