Japan’s ‘Camera Girls’: Behind the Lens

There’s long been a mutual love-in between the Japanese photographic industry and the country’s younger women. But having graduated from Puri Kura photobooth stickers, cellphone snaps and sleek and shiny compact digital cameras, growing numbers of Japanese women have taken to more serious camera technology in recent years to create their own art for personal blogs featuring “yurukawa” images —a term that combines the words “yurui” meaning loose and “kawaii” for cute — and for other social media like Mixi and Twitter.

And now, on top of specialist magazines like “Joshi Camera” catering to what are becoming known as “Camera Gaaru (girls),” camera makers are turning out sophisticated single lens reflex, or mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras specifically targeted at women. With good reason: According to the country’s Camera and Imaging Products Association, women’s use of single-lens reflex cameras with interchangeable lenses has increased from 2.3% of the total Japanese market in 2004 to 11% in 2009, increasing by 3% between 2008 and 2009.

This week Fujifilm Holdings Corp. introduced a new but vintage-look camera, the FinePix X100, combining the retro feel of a more serious camera with the functionality of a modern digital compact. Retailing at 130,000 yen ($1,580), Fujifilm says an unexpected amount of the buzz on micro-blogging service Twitter, a wildfire success in Japan, is coming from young female amateur photographers.

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