This talk, given by Gyewon Kim of the Department of History of Art and Architecture, addresses how photography engaged with the production of the modern sacred geographies in Japan. It particularly focuses on the meanings and implications of two distinctive photographic events: photography's role in the imperial progresses from 1872-1886; and the part photography played in the commemoration of the emperor's sacred trace, which surfaced in his death in 1912. Taken together, this talk seeks to elucidate how photographic records provided an authoritative material base for the creation of the new ideas and material realities for imperial sacred places.