When repeating the processing of Steps SA10 to SA16, that is, when sequentially photographing pages during a sequential page-turning operation by the automatic page turning apparatus 3, if a photographing interruption instruction given by the user is received at an arbitrary time point (YES at Step SA15), the control section 25 immediately shifts to the processing of Step SA17 even if the page turning count acquired by the sequential page-turning operation has not reached the interruption page count M.

That is, the control section 25 initializes the sequential page-turning count m to “0” and associates a group of page images stored by the sequential photographing performed up to this point (Step SA18). Then, at the timing of the issuance of a photographing restart instruction (YES at Step SA19), the control section 25 returns to Step SA10, and repeats the subsequent processing. Then, when the photographing-completed page count n reaches the photographing page count N during this processing (YES at Step SA14), the control section 25 terminates the processing in the divisional photographing mode at this point.

As described above, in automatic photographing in the divisional photographing mode, every time the sequential page-turning count m reaches the interruption page count M set by the user, the automatic page turning apparatus 3 automatically stops a sequential page turning operation. This allows the user to easily perform a series of page photographing operations by setting, as the interruption page count M, the number of times of page turning which is expected to exceed the limit at which the pressure of air can prevent pages at the page-turning end point from returning (or the number of times of page turning which is equal to or less than the number described above).