ABSTRACT
How did the Japanese interpret photographic images? We can come to some understanding by examining the context in which images of the Japanese and colonial subjects were produced and viewed. In this chapter, I argue that modern notions of race were introduced into Japan which infl uenced the way images of the emperor and his subjects were transmitted. By the early twentieth century, the words ‘race’ and ‘nation’ came to be linked via the term ‘Yamato minzoku’ (‘Japanese race’) as part of efforts to promote the emperor as head of the family state. The Japanese people were, it was said, linked to the emperor not only by blood but by Yamato spirit.1
