OGAWA, Kazumasa.

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Nichiro sen'eki shashin-jo (The Russo-Japanese War). First editions of these photobooks celebrating the activities of the Japanese Army in the Russo-Japanese War. They were produced by a team taught by Ogawa Kazumasa, the pioneer of collotype printing in Japan.At the beginning of the 20th century, Ogawa's company printed two photobooks centred on the Japanese war efforts: Nisshin senso-zu (A Photographic Album of the Japan-China War) and Nichiro sen'eki shashin-jo (The Russo-Japanese War). The latter, a "thirty-two volume series and its accompanying exhibition are compelling examples of the transition in printing technology from collotype to halftone and reveal much about the excitement around photography as a technology to communicate information about war. They are also a record of perceptions of the visual challenges photographic technology posed in the very moment that it was beginning to build momentum in the mass press in Japan. Through his unwavering efforts to profit from the business of selling photographs, it was the mass-produced halftone, not the individual print, and the publisher, rather than the photographer who made photographic history" (McCormick).Ogawa's series was consolidated into six albums in 1906, one of which focused on the navy and the remaining five on the army. This collection consists of four of the army volumes: First Army, Second Army, Fourth Army, and Armies of the Yalu and Karafuto. They each contain up to 150 plates after photographs, as well

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