I'd wager there is a technical component that plays a bit here: During the economic "boom" phase, Japanese had plenty access to money and Japanese cameras, fil

I'd wager there is a technical component that plays a bit here: During the economic "boom" phase, Japanese had plenty access to money and Japanese cameras, film etc. Hiromix for instance started photography pretty early, and focus a lot on catching youth as its happening to her and her surroundings. She was taking a very large number of photos (as anyone should) from a relatively young age, on film. There must be people who have taken the same trajectory in the west, but thinking about the costs at the time I wouldn't expect it to happen at the same scale, and consequently the talent pool would be smaller in the end. Japan and photography is a true love affair, I see the diversity of the photographers coming out of Japan as a testament to how they were free to put photography in their everyday life when in the west it looked to me more like a special occasions thing (reminds me of the Olympus "Pen" philosophy, of having a camera in everyone's bag, the same way we carry pens)