At that time, it was one of the first photography galleries in Japan not to be dedicated to the works of a single photographer.

In order to appeal to children as well as adults, the gallery holds exhibitions of anime and video games.

[4] Most of the individual exhibitions are accompanied by printed catalogues; as is customary in Japan, most of these lack ISBNs and are not distributed as are regular books, their sales instead being limited to the museum itself.

Photographers whose work is included in the permanent collection include Shihachi Fujimoto, Bruce Gilden,[5] Hisae Imai, Takeji Iwamiya, Akira Komoto, Motoichi Kumagai, Seiji Kurata, Michiko Matsumoto, Aizō Morikawa, Eiichi Moriwaki, Tadayuki Naitoh, Kiyoshi Nishiyama, Yoshino Ōishi, Kōji Satō, Tokihiro Satō, Bukō Shimizu, Mieko Shiomi, Teikō Shiotani, Raghubir Singh, Yutaka Takanashi, Toyoko Tokiwa, Haruo Tomiyama, Kansuke Yamamoto and others.

The museum was closed for renovation from September 24, 2014, to the end of August, 2016.