Alexandra Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward

 

A recent obsession of mine is the idea when we do something (something we may have done in the past) we never think about that moment in the future until that future happens.

My eldest daughter Alexandra was a little girl when I photographed her sitting on a chair by the window. I could never have thought, “Someday, exactly on 7 October 2025 I will go into the guest bathroom to take out a roll of paper towel. I will stare at this framed picture and decide that I will scan it and write about it.”

I can find the original negative without much problem. The framed picture is of a technique that I developed quite a few years ago when we were living in Kerrisdale. The technique involved projecting the neg in my enlarger on Kodalith (Kodallith film) and then process it (not high contrast but in continuous tone) as if it were photographic paper. Once I mounted that on silver card/cardboard, the result resembled Daguerre’s Daguerreotypes (sometimes called tintypes).

Some of my friends would tell me that this was a pleasure of “analog” photography in an old-fashioned darkroom. That is not the case.

I can now scan that negative and print it as an ink-jet transparency and then mount it on silver card. I can do the same with a digital exposure and even in colour.

The secret to all the above is perhaps not being able to foresee the memory of a photograph in a distant future (my daughter is now 56) but to remember what was done in the past; know who Daguerre was, and apply that knowledge to the many possibilities we have in this century.

Alexandra’s framed scan cannot show its almost three dimensionality. Looking at it from different angles does just that. I am not sure what will happen to this framed picture in posterity when I am gone. I did immerse the Kodalith in Kodak Selenium Toner for an archival future.

And of course the wonders in having a good Epson scanner.