Talk:Seiki Kayamori

Sourcing, etc.
This article's a funny one. In the state in which we now view it, almost all of it comes from its very first edit, which is the only edit to en:WP ever made by Mfthomas.

It says quite a bit and cites two sources: (i) "Guide to the Fhoki [sic] Kayamori Photograph Collection" and (ii) "Thomas, Margaret. 'Was Kayamori a spy?' Alaska magazine, Nov.1995, p. 48+." The former is available online but accounts for a small percentage of the material presented here. (For example, it blandly calls the man "Fhoki", with no mention of "Shoki" or "Seiki".) It's also a bit garbled, for example having one sentence that ends with "the". I haven't seen and cannot obtain Alaska (the magazine).

Googling turned up various mentions of a paper titled "Fhoki [sic] Kayamori: Amateur Photographer of Yakutat, 1912-41" in Alaska History 6, no. 2 (1991): 30-36. I don't have that and won't be able to get it, but it sounds good. Somebody with access to a library that's decent for Alaska might take a look at these pieces in Alaska and Alaskan History. And of course books on Alaskan ethnography, etc., might be informative too.

Incidentally, I've made various guesses at the kanji for "Kayamori" and googled for them together with the Japanese for "Alaska" or "photograph": nothing. (Of course it's possible that I haven't been sufficiently imaginative with the kanji.)

As it is, I have all sorts of questions. Just as one rather trivial example, why would Kayamori have a box camera for plates that required a black cloth? (Box cameras typically take roll film -- they've done this since the 19th century -- and have "brilliant finders".) -- Hoary (talk) 14:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked into this too much. However, I probably should track down the Alaska History piece.  I can assure you that anything written by Ron Inouye on the subject of Japanese or Japanese-American people in Alaska is as good as gold.  I haven't looked into this too much, either, but I doubt this is the only thing he's had published, seeing as how he's spent years, if not decades, researching the subject. RadioKAOS  –&#32; Talk to me, Billy  02:45, 1 March 2013 (UTC)