At first, I was puzzled by this photograph's enigmatic title, "This Isn't War Work." The photo shows a Japanese sawmill during the early decades of the last century.

Japan was allied with Great Britain and the U.S. in World War I, when Elstner Hilton took this photograph. So Elstner wasn't commenting on the war efforts of an enemy country.

Then I considered what Elstner did for a living. He sold mechanical sawmills, machines that do the work of many people in the blink of an eye.

I think when Elstner said "this isn't war work," he was making a statement about the incredibly slow and labor intensive process by which a single person sawed a log into planks with hand tools.

War work came to mind as a point of comparison because WWI was in full swing and many economies (including other sectors of the Japanese economy) had factories working day and night mass-producing weapons and other wartime goods.

Elstner's likely point was that true "war work" would require a much greater sense of urgency and a much larger commitment of human and mechanical resources than are apparent in this photo.

Regardless, one cannot help but admire the craftsmanship and skilled use of tools on view in this photo. I have a feeling that plank was going to come off the log straight and true.