Late last year while doing some serious cleaning at home, I uncovered these photos.
The person in the center with the bride’s headdress is my mom. According to her, this is actual wedding ceremony attire, but it isn’t from her own wedding; it turns out it’s a photo from when she modeled bridal wear in
her early 20s. That makes the photo over 60 years old. If you look closely, “Matsuoka Bizan” is written on the bottom right. You can even clearly read the address and phone number. Looking up the address I discovered it was only a few minutes away by car, but I knew there was no longer any photography studio there. When I looked for more information on the internet, I learned that there is a studio called Matsuoka Photo in neighboring Minami-ku… I gave it a call and what do you know! It was the place!
To be honest, I wasn’t actually hoping for much, but when the person confirmed, “Yep, that Matsuoka you refer to is my grandfather,” I was caught off guard. I was so excited that I bungled my words when making an appointment. I visited a few days later. The shop, in Tori-cho of Minami-ku, was situated along the Kamakura Kaido (road). It was shuttered when I arrived, but as I was moseying about, the owner arrived on a bike and opened it up. I got jittery again as I rushed over, but he kindly let me in.
The shop owner’s name was Akira Matsuoka. “Ah, this is definitely my grandfather’s work,” he said. “His name was Matsunosuke Matsuoka, but Bizan was his professional work name.” He showed me an old envelope with the shop name on it. Yep, it was exactly the same as what was on my mother’s photograph. Unfortunately, the negative for the photograph was long since lost during a move.
Matsuoka Photo is to this day a studio, and still handles weddings, group photography, school events and the like. The local government is even a client. It seems that it even established a reputation among the shipping industry. He then showed me a newspaper clipping which detailed Matsunosuke Matsuoka’s photographs of shipping vessels. “It seems like you’ve had quite a lot of business with the shipping industry since your grandfather’s time,” I remarked.
On seeing a staircase deeper inside the store, my interest was piqued. Guessing what I was wondering, Matsuoka said, “Our studio is upstairs… but it needs some straightening up…”. Undeterred, I asked for a tour and he obliged. It was full of wonders: cameras, film holders, glass cases–items, no doubt, from his grandfather day. And there in the middle was a chair and lighting set for portraits. “We used this during Coming of Age Day last week,” he said. Laying nearby was a test print of the occasion. Laughing, he added, “Obviously we use digital now.”
At present, Matsuoka does both digital prints and acts as a studio of old. When I stepped out and walked along Kamakura Kaido, I mused about photography surviving if it is printed… about not leaving it in data form, but printing it as a necessity. That thought lingered as I returned home.