File:Elstner Hilton (1911 by Elstner Hilton).jpg

Doesn't Elstner look spruce in his cloak, bow tie, collar and Panama hat? Not bad for a boy born in 1880's San Diego who didn't go to college.

At first, I thought this photo might have been taken in Japan at a pier that served ocean liners.

However, flickerite tokyogaz has kindly translated the characters on the structure behind Elstner's left shoulder, which is on the right in this photo. They read "Tsurumi." Tokyogaz quite reasonably suggests this photo was taken at the Tsurumi railway station in the port city of Yokahama, Thank you, tokyogaz!

While I am tempted to say Uncle Elstner is fresh off the boat (or train) here, he's the only person in the scene. Either the photographer was fortunate enough to snap the shutter when the background was devoid of people, or Elstner was there during a slack time.

As a salesman for Atkins Saw Company, Elstner Hilton traveled to the Far East to sell commercial sawmills in the early years of the 20th century. So I think of him as a reverse Johnny Appleseed, on the vanguard of deforestation that continues to this day.

Be that as it may, Elstner was an avid photographer, a bon vivant, an adventurer, and a dandy. That is an intriguing combination of traits for an expatriate in any era, doubly so for someone living in Asia during the first decades of the last century.

Elstner Hilton was my father-in-law's brother, which makes him my spouse's uncle.

Taken between 1914 and 1918.