was a pioneering, though now little-known, nineteenth-century Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese photographer. Kameya's original surname was Abe ; he was adopted by a family named Kameya. He learned photography at Deshima

Dejima

was a small fan-shaped artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634. This island, which was formed by digging a canal through a small peninsula, remained as the single place of direct trade and exchange between Japan and the outside world during the Edo period. Dejima was built to...

, the Dutch enclave in the harbour of Nagasaki where physicians Jan Karel van den Broek

Jan Karel van den Broek

Jan Karel van den Broek was a Dutch physician based in Nagasaki, Japan. In Nagasaki he taught medicine, chemistry and photography....

 and J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort

J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort

Johannes Lijdius Catharinus Pompe van Meerdervoort was a Dutch physician based in Nagasaki, Japan...

 taught photography in addition to medicine and chemistry. In turn, Kameya taught photography to Tomishige Rihei

Tomishige Rihei

was an important 19th and early 20th century Japanese photographer. He was a pioneer of wet-plate photography in Japan and is noted for his excellent large-format, albumen landscapes. Tomishige is especially renowned in Kyūshū....

, who became his apprentice in 1862. The same year, Kameya moved to Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

 to open a photographic studio

Photographic studio

A photographic studio is both a workspace and a corporate body. As a workspace it is much like an artist’s studio, but providing space to take, develop, print and duplicate photographs. Photographic training and the display of finished photographs may also be accommodated in a photographic studio...

 – the first commercial studio in the city. In 1868, he returned to Nagasaki, where he operated a studio until his death. He died in 1884 in Vladivostok

Vladivostok

The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...

, having opened a branch studio there.

Kameya had a daughter, Kameya Toyo , who assisted him in his Nagasaki studio and was one of Japan's first woman photographers. In 1871, she married Yoshii Teijirō , whom the family adopted and who took the name Kameya Teijirō; he also worked at the Nagasaki studio, later opening and operating a branch studio in Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 until his death in 1885.

Kameya Tokujirō may have opened his Nagasaki studio before his 1862 move to Kyoto, and if so it may predate that of Ueno Hikoma

Ueno Hikoma

was a pioneer Japanese photographer, born in Nagasaki. He is noted for his fine portraits, often of important Japanese and foreign figures, and for his excellent landscapes, particularly of Nagasaki and its surroundings...

as the earliest in the city.