Upon his return to Japan in 1884, Ogawa opened a photographic studio in Iidabashi (Kōjimachi), the first in Tokyo.

In the same year, Ogawa worked as an editor for Shashin Shinpō (写真新報, lit.

In 1888, Ogawa joined Okakura Kakuzō, Kuki Ryuichi, and Ernest Fenollosa as part of the Kinki Treasure Survey, an expedition commissioned by the Imperial Household to survey works of art held in temples throughout Japan’s Kinki, or Kinai, region.

In 1891, he was charged with taking 100 pictures of Tokyo's most attractive geisha, to commemorate the opening of the Ryōunkaku.

The book described their stay on a farm near the Yangtze River as they avoided the summer heat at their home in Chongqing.