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If you shoot enough on the street you might just end up photographing a magazine editor, and it’s also possible that he had already heard about you through a mutual friend, and one thing leads to another and you’ll be asked to bring a portfolio in sometime. The (Japanese) Photo Scene in Tokyo is certainly well connected, and you never know when or how you’ll make a new contact. As of publication “Look at me Look at you” is not yet scheduled to be exhibited. However, one’s chances of getting published are considerably raised if the work is backed by a show in Tokyo.

In case you are not familiar with magazines like Nippon Camera and Asahi Camera, these are monthly 350+ page periodicals which have been around for decades. The May issue of Nippon Camera features 8 photographers, myself included. Roughly speaking, that’s about 96 people getting a chance to have a few pages of work published in one year. Factor in Asahi Camera and we’re near 200. Once you start including the other magazines like (off the top of my head) Photographica, Photokon, Life With Camera, Camera Biyori, Camera Magazine, Love Camera, Mama’s Camera, SNAP, not to mention all the gear-centered publications or the nature and train photography magazines, we’re taking about hundreds if not more than 1000 people who are getting published every year. This is without trying to estimate how many folks get work printed in each of those magazine’s monthly photo contest sections.

Believe this: Japan is where Published Photography thrives unlike any other place on earth.

Nothing like the validation of print!

Many thanks to Nippon Camera for this experience.
And thanks to Yuna for both the translation and being in the picture above it.