Japanese photography in the 1950s was objective and documentary, in the style of the Magnum photographers and the MoMA exhibit The Family of Man, which was immensely popular in Japan. Hiroshi Hamaya's famous photograph "Woman Planting Rice" (1955) and Ihee Kimura's street scenes are heavily Magnum influenced. One publication, Camera, had a monthly amateur photo contest judged by Ken Domon, one of the most famous photographers in the country, and it was in this column that many future professional photographers published their first pictures. Established as he was, Domon had a radical side: he was the first photographer to document Hiroshima, which had been prohibited during the American Occupation. He also published Chikuhō no kodomotachi, images of children in a poor coal mining town. The book was printed on newsprint, and with its cheap price, sold over 100,000 copies.
- The Family of Man: The Photographic Exhibition Created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955, p.64-65.
- Xavier Martel. Japon, 1945-1975: Un Renouveau Photographique. Paris: Marval, 2003, p.66-67.
- Ken Domon. Living Hiroshima. Tokyo: Tsukiji Shokan, 1978, p.108-109.
- Ken Domon. Chikuhō no kodomotachi (Children of Coalminers) . Tokyo: Patoria Shoten, 1960, p.34-35.
- Ihee Kimura. Kimura Ihē shashin zenshũ, Shōwa jidai. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, Shōwa 59 [1984] (2001 printing), plates 43-44.