Today Thursday, Rosemary, Hilary, Lauren, Rebecca and I have driven to La Conner, Washington. In La Conner we visited the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum in the historic Gaches Mansion on 2nd Street. I had a little light turn inside my head. I was convinced that I had been there before. Sure enough when we returned on Friday evening I found in my files: Ale & Hilary, La Conner -1988.
In those days my photography was still not something that was taken for granted by my family and Rosemary had made the effort to make sure that our daughters had the right dresses should I want to photograph them. Looking at these pictures I can see the problems of not having taken any kind of portable flash system. I had to expose for the faces of my daughters when in deep shade with a bright backlight. Some of these negatives (most except for a couple) taken with my Mamiya RB with a 6x7cm negative, would be just about impossible to correctly print on photographic paper in the darkroom. But the shadow/highlight tool from my Photoshop has done a pretty good job of bringing down the contrast. With these digital files I could get some pleasant giclées.
These photographs are a stark contrast to the ones I took of Lauren (Rebecca refused to have her picture taken) with my iPhone and a couple of Nikons. I will post them soon. I particularly appreciate more than ever how Rosemary made sure our daughters looked just right at the Gaches Mansion.
