Rare are the times when civilisations collide off the battlefield. Once of those magical moments happened in Japan, between 1860 and 1900. After centuries of isolation, the new emperor, who would later be known as Meiji, decided to open up the country. East met West. Photography had just been invented: it would not only bear witness to the encounter, it played a key role in the exchange. There is a running dialogue between the black-and-white photos – taken by the first European photographers and colorized one by one, by hand, by dozens of Japanese artisans hired by photography studios, then glued onto thick pieces of paper – and the Westerners’ comments, expressing their surprise at the hot tubs, the raw fish and the men running for hours on end bearing palanquins on their shoulders… The turn-of-the-20th-century encounter between East and West, as seen through a developing art form, photography, and European travellers’ comments.