He also worked as a monk at the Shōgyōin (正行院) temple in the Taitō district of Tokyo while he researched the history of Japanese photography.
In 1967, Kaneko entered Rissho University, where he joined the photography club, affiliated with the All Japan Students Photo Association.
Though Fukushima's lecture, Kaneko was exposed to works of western photographers like William Klein's Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels; Robert Frank's The Americans; and Richard Avedon's Nothing Personal; and also works of Japanese photographers like Shōmei Tōmatsu's Senryō (“Occupation"), Uchi ("Home"), and 11:02 Nagasaki, Eikoh Hosoe's Otoko to Onna (“Man and Woman”) and Bara Kei: Ordeal by Roses; and Ikkō Narahara's Human Land: Ningen no Tochi.
Although the project was never finished, it was formative to Kaneko's decision to pursue the path of a photography historian and critic.
The photographs taken by the group were organized and published in a photobook, Kono Chijō ni Wareware no Kuni wa Nai (“There is No Country for Us on This Earth”).
[4] The photobooks that Kaneko was exposed to while participating in the All Japan Students Photo Association inspired him to collect more.
It was at Photo Gallery Prism that Kaneko began building relationship with various photographers and people involved in Japanese photography like Shinzo Shimao, Hitoshi Tsukiji, Miyabi Taniguchi, and Osamu Hiraki.
[6] Through this networking, he became to collaborate with Shōmei Tōmatsu on Shashin Koku ("Photo Nation") which recorded the various activities of these young photographers.
He also was and lecturer and director at the Tokyo College of Photography and a trustee at the Japan Society for Arts and History.
In 2017 Kaneko published a collection of essays in Japanese titled Nihon wa Shashin-koku de Aru (Japan is a Country of Photobooks).