As I Saw Them
Friday, May 16, 2014
In 1979 Rosemary and I had taken our two
daughters, Hilary Anne and Alexandra Elizabeth for a ride in the Royal Hudson. This
wonderful train that used to run from North
Vancouver (only for tourists) to Squamish had a
special rail car with multi-coloured wooden bench seats. At the time Rosemary
had shown interest in sharing my own, on photography, and requested I buy her a
camera. I gave her a Pentax ME which worked just fine on its automatic mode,
particularly when mated to that ever-forgiving Kodak colour negative film.
As our daughters sat down I saw something
in my head. With no explanation I asked Rosemary for her camera and snapped
this picture. A few months later I printed it in my darkroom (I was a competent
colour printer) and went to a New Westminster U-Frame-It. The man who owned the
place catered to my silly desire to find coloured mats that somehow went with
the colours of the print.
For many years that framed photograph has
been hanging on the wall going up the stairs to our second floor. Recently I
took it down and placed it in our guest bathroom where I have a whole wall
dedicated to mostly family pictures. Today as I sat down (where the king goes
alone) I looked at the picture. I noted how I would have never chopped their hands.
I noted that Ale’s hat is cropped. And yet… There is a light that is shining on
Hilary’s face that is just right. Everything in the picture seems to be just
right on a moment that will never return.
Last night I read the introduction to Frank
Langella’s Dropped Names - Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them and a little
paragraph somehow not quite fits here but somehow it does.
Like elusive fireflies, they flickered for
a time, shone brightly, dimmed, and ultimately disappeared. Separate and
diverse individuals as they may be, my subjects have in common the inevitable
outcome awaiting us all: to live on only in memories. In this case mine.
A photograph revisited
A photograph revisited
