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The Japan Professional Photographers Society (JPS) was founded in 1950 by approximately 70 photographers aiming to affirm the rights and status of professionals in their field. The society began its activities with the objective of establishing and protecting copyright, promoting friendship and mutual assistance among members, furthering international photographic cultural exchange, creating new outlets for photo releases and facilitating job assistance.
A major focus of our energies was a campaign to revise the copyright duration for photographs, bringing it in line with that for other creative works at 50 years after the death of the artist. This campaign successfully resulted in us winning those rights in 1997. The previous law guaranteed works for a period of only 10 years following the first public display or publication, and the copyright duration for existing works by photographers prior to 1956 has already expired. We are currently campaigning to extend that copyright date back to 1945.
Since the founding of our society, we have, in addition to special exhibitions and exhibitions of works by members, hosted the JPS Exhibitions open to entries submitted by the general public and made efforts toward increasing the spread of and raising awareness about photography. In particular, through photographic exhibitions documenting the history of photography in Japan and publishing books about the history of photography, we have successfully heightened interest in this field. By encouraging the establishment of museums of photography, we have aimed to inform the public about photography, both as a historical record and as an art form.
JPS presents the Japan Professional Photographers Society Award to groups and individuals who are recognized as having made outstanding contributions to developing technologies related to photography.
In 2005, JPS established the Yonosuke Natori Photographic Award, which is given in recognition of young photographic talent. We are involved in a number of activities aimed at disseminating and enhancing photography, including Photographic Education by means of the Photo Learning Program for elementary school children and Digital Photo Lectures for high school photo club advisers. JPS also hosts Photo Forums, where participants debate such issues as“ What are photographs?”
Sad to say, many of the photographers who were active in the turbulent prewar and immediate postwar years are no longer with us, and the enormous number of photographic plates they left behind now face the danger of being discarded due to lack of proper storage space. JPS is engaged in a campaign aimed at setting up an appropriate archive — to be known as the Japan Photographic Preservation Center — to preserve these plates, which record the history of the period in which these photographers were active.