One of the special gifts of being a photographer, and in particular that of a portrait photographer is to see how time affects and changes a person as time inexorably marches forward.

On my first trip to New York City and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1987 I was astounded that they permitted to bring in a tripod and to shoot self-portraits. The digital concept of the selfie was years away. I took many but my fave has been the one here in which I share space with Rembrandt’s self-portrait. Thus it is a double selfie.

This time around (last week) I did not take a tripod (it is still permitted at the Met) because of security provisions. They always open your suitcase if a tripod is inside. And in some cases going into an airplane with a tripod in one’s carry on is seen as a potential weapon.

So Rosemary took my picture with my vintage (vintage is rapid these days) iPhone3G (it has no SIM 

card it is only a camera).

The other photograph is a Courbet.

For these pictures I was using extreme fine grain Kodak Technical Pan. My camera was Pentax Spotmatic-F with probably a 50 or 35 mm lens