On August 8th, I went to the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum with my brother. We took the subway to Ebisu station and walked to the museum. We arrived at 10:08, bought tickets, and entered the museum. The museum is separated into 5 floors, 4f to B1F. The first floor is reception, the fourth floor is a library, and floors B1, 2F, and 3F host exhibition galleries. As of 8/8, the B1 floor is being prepared for an upcoming exhibit, and the others are available.
The second floor hosted an exhibit about the works of photo artists Motohashi Seiichi and Robert Doisneau. The two artists, although born in different times and places, have both photographed society, and made outstanding reports and works on the same subjects. The exhibited photos are genuine and unique, and capture the lives of common people very well.
After the second floor, we had a slight rest next to the shop and departed for the third floor.
The third floor features a unique subject on how people see things. The exhibit is organized into five chapters, each documenting a chapter in the history and evolution of “Peep Media”.
- Chapter 1 includes mostly 19th-century and 18th-century art, using paper and glass to achieve a 3d-like effect. People in this era already know a part of how to view things in 3d, and the effects they can achieve, even with simple materials, are amazing.
- Chapter 2 includes early pictures, like the cross-section of a sea urchin, as well as an early small flip-page movie about a horse, and a colored picture of a bullet piercing an apple.
- Chapter 3 crosses into a more advanced 3d view, with viewing cameras similar to modern 3d glasses. It works by placing two similar pictures next to each other to achieve a more realistic 3d effect. When you activate a VR app on your phone, the phone screen is similar to this.
- Chapter 4 is about motion pictures, the early films. It works by putting pictures one after one, like flip films. The more advanced ones feature handles that you can spin, and buttons to autoplay it.
- Chapter 5 moves more to a modern setting, about television, and an early film piece about filming a wheeled cart going down a hill. Being able to actually see how some scenes in film work is very cool indeed.
Overall, the 3rd floor is very worth visiting, and will certainly be a fun experience for lovers of photography! Me and my brother had a lot of fun watching films, and watching early TV. We should strive to learn the early days of the common videos we watch every day now, and the many iterations of it. Learning about photo art is a fun and interesting experience.
