Phtograph Assignment

This image is by Ueno Hikoma, and is titled "European teacher with students." As directly stated in the title, this image portrays an European teacher surrounded by Japanese students. The westerner teacher is wearing a suit, bowtie, and even an over coat. He has his arms crossed, and he seems to be sitting in a chair, while his students are sitting on the floor or standing around him. All of the Japanese students are wearing same Japanese traditional clothing (kimonos) and are holding a sword. They all seem to be different in their ages, background, and their status in society.

The European teacher is sitting right in the middle of the image, and he seems to be right in front of the camera, which symbolizes his importance in this image. His gaze is straight towards the camera and he seems very focused. His gaze, upright posture, and his overall body language represent pride, confidence, and his status. On the other hand, all of this Japanese students seem very unfocused and they seem to not know what is going on in the room. Out of all of them, only 5 to 6 seem to be looking directly at the camera. The gaze of all the others are different, and they are looking around at different things around the room. It is interesting to see that all of the Japanese students' postures are indirectly pointing at the teacher and it guides the observer's focus onto the teacher. Although it makes sense that the European teacher is light-skinned than the Japanese students, this image especially makes the westerner look paler, and even glowing, due to all the darker-skinned Japanese students around him. This difference in the face color can also portray that the teacher is at a higher status than the students.

It is interesting to see that this image incorporates both the westerner and the Japanese people in one shot. This image portrays both modernism and tradition. Although this is a group picture, every aspect of this image (gaze, posture, color, clothing etc..) represents the superiority of the westerner over the Japanese people rather than unity between them. The fact that the westerner is a teacher, and the Japanese people are students also show that the Westerners are "better," and more civilized and superior to the Japanese people.