Wednesday, May 05, 2021

Wednesday Whispers From the Past

 


I offer you this.

I am curious about the man behind the camera. He's far from being a man of means.. He is the husband of the woman shown and the father of the child.  They live in a small flat above a chemist's on the main street of a small town. He's the town clerk.

He feels it important to capture the moments in his family's life so (I imagine) he bought the camera at a discount from the chemist shop downstairs, where he gets his photos developed. It's a Kodak Brownie.

The threesome have cycled a good distance today for he has had a special cast-iron seat installed on the crossbar of his bike to accommodate the child.

Their picnic is in the basket of his wife's bicycle. She doesn't want the child sitting on the bare cast iron seat so she uses the child's baby blanket on top of it to make sure she's comfortable. And they then sit on this for the picnic.

They're all a little tousled after the cycling. The mother has rigorously curled her own hair and that of the child the night before. And as the father readies the lens on the Brownie, she takes out a comb and fixes her own hair but devotes more time to the child who squirms as she reties the bow in her hair. 

The father jokes with the child to make her laugh and as she does, the mother smiles, holding her daughter's hand. 

He snaps the perfect picture, beautifully framed.

27 comments:

  1. Lovely photo. Are you the child?

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    1. Got it in one Molly. I always look at photos from the photographer's perspective as I find that most interesting of all.

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  2. A beautiful photo and dozens of precious memories.

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  3. This is lovely. I remember my father developing his own photos. they hang and dried in a corner of our living room, and we children wanted so much to look with our fingers, but he was smart and hung them up high, so that we could not reach the tempting strips ... I realize now those were the negatives. I wonder where they went.

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    1. It's hard to keep track and find such precious memories, Charlotte. Especially negatives.

      XO
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  4. A delightful photograph and a delightful story about how it came about.

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  5. Somewhere there's a picture of my older sister and me, this exact pose, in the park, taken by my brother with his Brownie Box. 120 size, 6 exposures to a roll. He won it in an essay competition.

    It was a great luxury to take a photo, so there aren't many. This picture feels so familiar! Thank you.

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    1. You're welcome Boud. I'm so glad it drew up a memory for you!

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  6. Can't one photo combined with a memory tell such a vivid story.

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    1. It really does Andrew. I had never thought about those behind the lens in such a way before.

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  7. You're a fine photographer yourself, and you nailed this one, right down to the perfect framing.

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  8. I'm assuming that's you and your mom? Love the story behind the photo.

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  9. Is the child you and those are your parents? It's a nice photo. I know a lot of women who curl their baby daughter's hair, I simply don't see the point. In my mind it is like telling the child she is not pretty enough with her natural hair.

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    1. I totally agree River, but in those days it was done all the time. Mine would be put in rags at night. Hell to sleep. Such suffering and for what?

      XO
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  10. What a lovely memory! So nice to have it in a photograph!

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  11. That is a pretty photo of the two of you. Your parents were gems, weren't they? Pictures don't lie. You look so happy.

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  12. I love this picture. I feel so fortunate in that my father put the pictures he took in albums for each of his three girls. He was 53 when he had me and I am the oldest. He was from Roscommon, born in 1890. He worked on the big estates on Long Island as a gardener - gave us a love for nature, poetry and story telling. I love going through the pictures. Your story and picture reminded me of all of this.

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    1. Thank you Mary, that picture means the world to me and our fathers sound really similar, photos were very important to my dad and he was meticulous on making notes on the backs of them.

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  13. What a charming photo. The woman looks uncannily like my sister (when she was younger).

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    1. Isn't that strange Nick, maybe we are related, one never knows.

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  14. I read this some days ago and thought I left a comment -- admired the photo and your story. Such happy smiles!

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