How to make your photos look like they’re from the Meiji Era

by 18 Comments

meiji-hotdog

I bet a lot of you have thought “damn, my pictures just don’t look Meiji enough.” Thank goodness there’s a solution for you. I have actually known about this website for a long time now, but for some reason never realized I never shared it with anyone (it’s my own dirty secret!). I’ve been working hard on my “How to speak like a Japanese girl (or boy)” class, and needed to use this service, which is when I realized that I’d rather procrastinate by writing this blog post instead. So consider yourselves lucky duckies.

The Bakumatsu Koshashin!

This is the name of the website. It means:

Bakumatsu: End of the Feudal Era (i.e. the Meiji Period!)
Koshashin: Old Photo

I went ahead and did a search for real images from this period, and they actually look pretty similar (not to mention remind me of the website where you can digitally deface Japanese textbook images). Here’s a few to gander on. Remember, these are real photos, not the ones generated by the website.

181_ENAMI_-_Three_on_Cryptomeria_Road_-_Nikko_3D_7.340121218_std

Meiji

Now wouldn’t it be great if all your photos could look like this? It’s really easy to do, even if you don’t understand the Japanese it takes to navigate the site.

1. Visit the Bakumatsu Koshashin

2. Add your picture (click to the left of the ‘browse’ button to choose your image file).

bakumatsukoshashin

3. Click the button underneath the browse button in the middle to make the magic happen. Poof, you’re done!

Best Picture Wins

There’s so much potential to take advantage of for this service, and I know you’re all more creative than me. If you put a picture through the bakumatsu Koshashin, be sure to upload it to a service like PhotoBucket (or whatever) and share the link. I’d love to see them, and the more ridiculous the better! I’ll even post the good ones up on this blog post as updates and attribute back to you! Let me leave you with a few takeaways.

unicornchair

Electric Wheelchair Unicorn Mount

zirnq5-20090708160739

Now it’s on, fools. You think you got something that’s better? Like I said, I’ll post the really good ones up on this post as updates, and you can even ask me to link back somewhere. You know you want the blogger crack (Has to be a really good image though!).