Girls’ Photography
Intimate, diary-like photography by girls and young women depicting everyday life, relationships, and self-discovery.
Girls’ Photography, often referred to by the Japanese term onnanoko shashin, denotes photographic work by girls and young women that foregrounds subjective experience and self-representation. The term first becomes prominent in Japan in the 1990s around a generation of young women photographers whose success challenged a male-dominated photo culture. Their images often function as visual diaries of friendships, private rituals, and the domestic or social spaces that structure their everyday lives.
Aesthetically, girl photographs typically adopt a snapshot style that values immediacy, candor, and apparent lack of polish. Casual framing, visible imperfections, and an unretouched treatment of the body contribute to a candid sense of girlhood. Subjects include self-portraits and portraits of peers and family, scenes of leisure or personal interests, and transitional moments of adolescence, often set in bedrooms or other familiar interiors and public spaces. While some projects rely on spontaneous shooting, others use carefully staged tableaux that mimic found moments, positioning the work between documentary and fiction. The practice frequently uses accessible tools such as compact cameras, instant film, or disposable cameras.
The term onnanoko shashin has at times been used dismissively within the photographic establishment, framing such work as trivial, romantic, or sentimental. At the same time, that reception has drawn the genre into feminist and identity-oriented debates about the male gaze, authorship, and control over representation. In these debates, Girls’ Photography is situated among snapshot aesthetic, vernacular photography, self-portraiture, and selfie culture, and is understood as one way young people shape how their stories are seen.