“The Thoughtful East” / “Masters. Jaupur”

Nathan McCall

Accompanying the photographs are captions written by Ms Porter. These captions present an insight into Ms Porter’s reactions to some of the people and places that she saw. Of particular interest are three photographs captioned. The first is an image of a bearded man with a Tilaka painted on his forehead, indicating that he is probably of Indian heritage. This image is captioned The Thoughtful East. The second is an image of two western women, clearly distinguished by their clothing and complexions. One of these women is possibly Una Porter herself. This image is captioned The Thoughtless West. The final image is a group photo of twenty Indian men and one white male. The group are wearing of mixture of western attire and Indian garments. This photo is captioned Masters. Jaupur. Individually, these photographs do not provide any context for their creation and rely entirely on the larger photograph album to provide that context and the story of Ms Porter’s journey throughout South Asia. As the entire photograph album has been digitised along with these photographs, the viewer has access to all of Ms Porter’s time in the sub-continent however and makes these three photographs more poignant as a result.

Through the captions below the photographs, Ms Porter whether has presented the Indian subjects of British colonial rule as the enlightened, educated people and the Western women as the primitive, simple individuals. On the other hand, the caption Masters. Jaupur, coupled with the photograph of the Indian men dressed in western attire can also represent the westernisation of Indian society. The caption could also indicate that the these men only became ‘masters’ because they had embraced and accepted the supposed ‘civilising’ power of western influence. The placement of the Masters. Jaupur photo does not rely on other photos to provide context as the name suggests the occupation of the men depicted as well as the name of place that the photo was taken. Conversely, the photo captioned The Thoughtless West relies on a placement alongside the image captioned The Thoughtful East.