When our family lived in Occupied Japan during the years 1956 – 1959, my father decided to take up photography as a hobby. I never thought of him as an artist, but the more I look at these photographs the more I realize what a true artist he was.

In addition to making all the photographs, my father set up a photo darkroom in our house. Billy P Lamb thoroughly documented our family’s experience from unexposed film to finished photographic prints. One of my fondest memories as a child was watching the exposed white sheet of blank photo paper come to life in the trays of chemicals and become a finished print.

The older I get the more I realize the hidden talents and eye for daily life in Japan that my father captured. This book is a collection of my father’s documentary photographs that he made while living there.

~Jake Lamb