Shimooka Renjō

was a Japanese photographer and was one of the first professional photographers in Japan.

Early life

He was born with the name Sakurada Hisanosuke in Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula in central Honshū to a samurai family. He continued to open studios in the city, primarily focusing on portraiture, and changed his name to Shimooka Renjō in 1865. Recent discoveries have found that Ukai Gyokusen had opened an ambrotype portrait studio in Edo only a year or two before Renjō opened his studio in 1862. Ueno Hikoma, a chemist, began operating a studio in Nagasaki later the same year. Despite this, Renjō was still one of the nation’s first professional photographers, and one of the most successful. He opened several additional studios and businesses across Yokohama during his career. (Other contemporaries of Renjō included Uchida Kuichi and Shima Kakoku. )

In addition to being a pioneer of the art, Renjō also helped to establish photography in Japan by teaching it to many of his other countrymen. For example, he was the teacher of the great photographer Yokoyama Matsusaburō, starting in 1864. He also taught many other students including: Usui Shusaburo, Esaki Reiji, and Suzuki Shin'ichi I and II . He was honored by the government of Tokyo before his death for his influence, and was elected to join the Japan Photographic Society in 1893.