It becomes easy to check the position of an insert by suppressing the influence of artifacts in a photoacoustic image generation apparatus. An insertion needle (15) has a light guide member for guiding light emitted from a light source, a light emitting portion for emitting light guided by the light guide member, and a photoacoustic wave generating portion for generating photoacoustic waves caused by light emitted from the light emitting portion. Photoacoustic image generation means (24) generates a photoacoustic image based on the detection signal of the photoacoustic waves. Distal end candidate extraction means (29) extracts a distal end candidate region from the shallow side of the image based on the strength of the detection signal of the photoacoustic waves. Image output means (26) displays the extracted distal end candidate region on image display means (14).
