Kōei, greatly encouraged Shiotani. Shiotani became an enthusiastic user of the Vest Pocket Kodak, and in 1919 set up the "Vest Club" (i.e. Vest Pocket Kodak club; , Besuto Kurabu) in Akasaki, with 88 members. Perhaps thanks to his grandfather, he was freed from a career in the family shipping business and instead allowed to pursue photography. Many Japanese amateur photographers of the time prized a painterly effect over detail – not necessarily Western-style painting, but often Japanese, and particularly of a . The aim was geijutsu shashin, which, depending on context, could be translated as "artistic", "art", "salon" or "pictorialist" photography. The meniscus lens of the Vest Pocket Kodak did not permit detail, and photographers using it – notably Masataka Takayama, , , Mitsugi Arima () and Kōyō Yasumoto () – would often remove an aperture limiter from around its lens (fūdo hazushi), thereby not only increasing the aperture by about two stops but also greatly softening the focus. Shiotani was attracted by the misty results and their resemblance to the works of a painter from Tottori whom he respected highly, . In 1922, Shiotani married Sadako Inoue (, 1905–1988). They had three sons, Sōnosuke (, b. June 1923), Reiji (, November 1926 – March 1927) and Makoto (, August 1940 – September 1945); and two daughters, Yūko (, b. February 1930) and Yōko (, b. July 1934). Prominence Shiotani's earliest known appearance in a major magazine was his Still life (Seibutsu), among contest winners in the January 1925 issue of . His Shadow (Kage) appeared in the March 1925 issue of Camera. As editor of both magazines, realized that Shiotani was unusually talented. In August 1925, Shiotani and four other photographers made a trip around the coasts of Shimane Prefecture: Kaka (), Konami (), , Mihonoseki, and particularly . Much later, Shiotani told Shōji Ueda: We took photographs for three days and I thought we would die. . . . During that trip we didn't encounter a single woman. There were no inns; we just wrapped ourselves in straw mats and kept on walking. Finally we managed to get some curry and rice with duck eggs and it was delicious. Despite these hardships, a number of photographs Shiotani took on the trip soon appeared in magazines. His Bird's-Eye View of a Village (Mura no chōkan) was published in the March 1926 issue of Geijutsu Shashin Kenkyū. It was