Ooh! Okay, so part of me feels like any weird technological gaps that canon has could easily be handwaved away in DoS specifically because they’re already on track for that and also Shikako just expects more from tech that even if she’s not the one inventing/improving various tech she’s at the least hinting at something like–hey wouldn’t it be neat if this phone was also a camera? Or, have you considered a wireless network?–but that still will take about a decade or two for the Naruto world to get to modern level.
I imagine, at first, since cameras have been noted to be like clunky for elites and still film based, that she would have to either pay ridiculous amounts of money OR justify why she needs one. The easiest reason I can think of is to further her fuinjutsu research. So at first its very official, almost like police officers with using their weapon: she has a set amount of film and has to keep account of every roll that she uses.
So most of her photos are very cut and dry “see Figure 3” in academic papers on the remains of the Gelel shrine or something like that. But as a sort of protest/she has a few more cells left over she’ll take some pictures of some really spectacular scenery: the view of the galaxy (are they in the Milky Way?) in the desert, sunrise on the horizon from Uzushio, etc etc.
Someone in Intel (maybe Shiho?) is in charge of directing her reports to the right places, but since the landscapes aren’t actually for intel, she just collects it (with proper labelling because Shiho is a proud paperwork nin) until Shikako returns to Konoha for a bit.
And it’s like: oh, I’ve collected your landscapes, Shikako! And there’s just this huge album of them neatly arranged and labelled that Shikako doesn’t actively remember taking. Like, she remembers taking these pictures but she didn’t realize how many of them there were that had accumulated.
And maybe this exchange is during a kunoichi meetings, so the other ladies see it and are all oohing and aahing over it (because no one really vacations as a shinobi. They travel for missions or for training, but hardly ever just to sightsee) so it’s greatly appreciated.
And then someone (probably Ino, because the Yamanaka own a publishing company on behalf of the Ino-Shika-Cho clans) has the idea to publish it. And it is REALLY well-received by the civilian population because they get to travel for sightseeing purposes even less frequently than shinobi. (And there are some views that literally no person has seen in decades or centuries because Uzushio has been abandoned or it’s a place that’s too dangerous with little return). So it’s really just accidental, I think, this following that Shikako garners from photography.
Then, as technology advances so too does her camera (and the Nara clan probably sponsors a really nice one both for the fuinjutsu research and the landscapes) and then the medium that its shared.
Copycats follow (because its an easy way for a shinobi to make money, and no doubt Cloud nin would be all about risking their lives for the perfect shot) but by the time blogging is around, Shikako herself has a following and that in itself has accidentally become a bit like “Man vs. Wild” even though she was originally aiming more for a “How It’s Made” or “Wonders of the Ancient World” or one of the other less action-packed National Geographic/Discovery Channel shows.
Whoops. (The Director of the Princess Fuun movies is probably involved somehow)
JackSGreyson Says 