Bad Girl Photography

Abstract

I nside a Tokyo auditorium in 1995, a female high school student beat 456 applicants to become the grand prix winner of Canon’s Cosmos of Photography photo contest, earning one million yen in prize money. In the quote above one of the judges is describing his interpretation of the winning entry, entitled “Seventeen Girl Days” by photographer Hiromix (real name Toshikawa Hiromi). Following the contest she embarked on a brilliant career as a successful photographer, publishing photo-diary books with occasional snapshots of herself in underwear or topless. Although the judge intends to praise the putatively unmanipulated nature of girls’ photography, Hiromix and other young women do invest thought into their photo diaries and other photographic projects. As the anthropologist David Sapir noted “A photograph is at once a direct representation of reality and the result of an utterly subjective choice.” 2 Sapir’s insightful acknowledgment of debate over reality and its representation is especially true of the type of photography produced by Japanese girls. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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