"Showa 30s Historic Railway Scenes"
Yomiuri: Next stop, nostalgia: Old Japan hand celebrates railway heritage
Asked when he first came to Japan, American photographer and railway enthusiast J. Wally Higgins, a longtime resident of Shizuoka Prefecture, promptly gives a remarkably precise reply: "At about 2:30 in the morning on the 31st of March of 1956"...Many of the photos in Higgins' three books, from JTB Publishing, come from travel in the spring and early summer of 1957...Much of the work of...other photographers no longer exists, Higgins said. "Most of the pictures the Japanese were taking were in black and white...And those who took color in just about any other film don't have it now. Kodachrome has held its color. Even Kodak's Ektachrome has faded."...Even for those whose memories don't go back that far, the images reflect dramatic changes in Japan's landscapes...There are a lot of wide blue skies in these pictures, even the ones taken in places like Shibuya, Tokyo...more...
