Finally, a colorized photo that doesn't look like an AI-generated fever dream. I am so tired of those lazy one-click upscales that make everyone's skin look like melted plastic. This is actual hand-colored artistry. You can really see the intention in the pigments, and it gives the Meiji transition so much more weight than a grainy black and white shot ever could.
It's wild to think this guy was standing right at the edge of old Japan and the modern world. In the 1870s, everything was changing at breakneck speed. He probably saw the last of the samurai and the first telegraph lines in the same decade. We always act like our era is moving fast, but that level of societal whiplash must have been absolutely exhausting to live through. Beautiful shot.