FEBRUARY 10, 2011, 8:02 PM JST
Japan’s ‘Camera Girls’: Behind the Lens
By Yuri Tomikawa
There’s long been a mutual love-in between the Japanese photographic industry and the country’s younger women. But having graduated from Puri Kura photobooth stickers, cellphone snaps and sleek and shiny compact digital cameras, growing numbers of Japanese women have taken to more serious camera technology in recent years to create their own art for personal blogs featuring “yurukawa” images —a term that combines the words “yurui” meaning loose and “kawaii” for cute — and for other social media like Mixi and Twitter.
And now, on top of specialist magazines like “Joshi Camera” catering to what are becoming known as “Camera Gaaru (girls),” camera makers are turning out sophisticated single lens reflex, or mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras specifically targeted at women. With good reason: According to the country’s Camera and Imaging Products Association, women’s use of single-lens reflex cameras with interchangeable lenses has increased from 2.3% of the total Japanese market in 2004 to 11% in 2009, increasing by 3% between 2008 and 2009.
This week Fujifilm Holdings Corp. introduced a new but vintage-look camera, the FinePix X100, combining the retro feel of a more serious camera with the functionality of a modern digital compact. Retailing at 130,000 yen ($1,580), Fujifilm says an unexpected amount of the buzz on micro-blogging service Twitter, a wildfire success in Japan, is coming from young female amateur photographers.
It’s a path well trod by Japanese camera maker Olympus Corp. with its Olympus Pen series. According to company spokeswoman Natsuki Takada, while female customers usually make up about 10% of most of Olympus’s mirrorless camera products, they have made up at least 30% of the new Olympus Pen Series. The company says it specifically targeted women by producing white and red-bodied models, rather than solely the big black types that previously dominated shelves. The camera’s website and TV commercials clearly target women, using a full cast of female models.
At camera giant Canon Inc. it’s a similar story: “Women have been increasingly becoming our main target for the single-lens reflex cameras,” says spokesman Yoshinobu Shoshi, explaining the company’s collaboration with magazine “Joshi Camera” in creating cuter camera straps and developing a flowery website for its Kiss series cameras. And Bic Camera, one of the largest electronics store chains in Japan, holds a “Girls’ Camera Section” where it sells women-targeted professional cameras and accessories.
Photography classes specifically held for women are also in growing demand. Nadar, a school located in Shibuya, has over 100 students on its books today for its women-only classes with most of the 15 student classes full, compared to the 20 to 30 students it attracted per year several years ago.
Why exactly are women turning to more professional cameras? Kazumi Hayashi, who wrote the textbook used at Nadar, explains that for many women, blogs are the gateway to photography. “When they see nice photos on other people’s blogs, they find out that they were taken with single-lens reflex cameras and think, ‘I’d like to try that too.’”
For others, it’s a more simple case of outgrowing easy-to-use, but very basic compact cameras for photos of their travels, hobbies or children. “The photos I took with my digital (compact) camera weren’t so great,” says Shoko Shibata, a mother of a one-year-old in her 30s who recently began photography classes at Nadar. “I go out on walks more now that I have a child so I take many photos then.”
