Kamishibai (Picture-card Theater) 

Scenes like this of children watching picture-card theater performances were once commonplace. The children, who would no doubt otherwise be running about, are gathered around, and you can see just how engrossed they are in the story. Kimura Ihee was one of the first photographers to start shooting snapshot photographs of everyday life. He used a small-bodied camera, a type that was still rare at the time, and he liked shooting in Tokyo’s working class “shitamachi” districts. Another feature of his photographs is that he framed them in his viewfinder as completed compositions that wouldn’t require enlarging or cropping. In this shot, the length and breadth of the 35-mm image has been used to capture the atmosphere of a shitamachi street corner.
(OSAWA Sayoko)