This photographic portrait of a Chinese rickshaw puller with a European passenger was taken at the Fujisaki Studio at Victoria Street. The ability to hire local servants such as this rickshaw puller was a means of affirming one’s social and economic status. Such photographs were usually taken to be sent home to Europe, and this demand resulted in the popularity of the photography studios set up by non-Western photographers in the late 19th and early 20th century. Well-to-do families and individuals, mostly wealthy businessmen or European traders and government officials, visited such studios to have their photographs taken. Such a trend could also be seen as a continuation of traditional portraiture as a privilege of the affluent. Photography was introduced in Singapore in the decades following the arrival of British colonialists and other Europeans. Advancements in technology in the mid-19th century made photography a commercially viable sector in the Singapore economy.
