Ukai developed an interest in art and antiques after coming to know the bunjinga painter Tani Bunchō, and in 1831 he left the sake business to become a full-time artist.
[3] In 1859, with the intention of learning photographic technique, Ukai travelled to Yokohama, one of the few Japanese cities to which foreigners had access and therefore (with Nagasaki) one of the early sites of photography in Japan.
In 1860 or 1861 he moved to Edo and set up a studio which he called Eishin-dō (影真堂) that was mentioned in a late 1861 publication titled Ō-Edo tōsei hanakurabe shohen.
The findings of this research were published between 1880 and 1881 as Kokka Yohō (国華余芳),[5] featuring lithographs derived from photographs by Ukai.
A monument placed at the site included carved biographical details that were supplemented four years later when Ukai died and was himself interred at the spot.