Hugues Krafft (1853 – 1935) was a born in Paris. He travelled around the world, and visited Japan in 1882–1883. He left numerous quality photographs of the period.

He was among the first to use instantaneous photography in Japan (he used a Zeiss camera with gelatine-silver bromide plates, a process which became widely available in 1880), which allowed him to take vivid pictures in an open environment, in contrast to the many staged studio photographs made by his predecessors.