[1] In 1935 he bought a Rokuoh Baby Pearl camera and started photographing the rural area where he lived, particularly its everyday life, winning prizes.
From 1952 Chiba freelanced as an Akita-based photojournalist in his free time, but after half a year's hospitalization he closed his kimono shop and opened a shop in Yokote selling photographic supplies.
In May of the following year, friends helped organize an exhibition of his posthumous works in Fuji Photo Salon, Tokyo.
In 1992 his works were displayed prominently within an exhibition held by the Miyagi Museum of Art of postwar photography in Tōhoku.
[2] The first booklength collection of Chiba's works came over thirty years after his death, in a slim volume of the series Nihon no Shashinka that serves as an anthology.