By a quirk of a pleasant fate I married my Rosemary in 1968 and had two daughters. One of them, Hilary, had two daughters.
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| Hilary and Alexandra on the Royal Hudson |
Because of that I have amassed over the years what I believe may be one of the largest collections of children portraits.
There are two photographers of the 19th century that I have admired for years because of their portraits. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in this century would be pilloried even though we know he had a third person (usually Alice Liddell’s cousin or friend) on his boat with Alice.
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| Rebecca |
Julia Margaret Cameron had the protection of being an older woman when she photographed children.
Both Dodgson and Cameron rarely photographed children smiling. I believe that part of the reason is that in Victorian times, children were seen as little adults, and many worked terrible hours in unsanitary conditions.
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| Lauren & Casi |
Thus, this photographer, by virtue of being a father and grandfather, had the luck of having willing (sometimes not so willing) subjects until my Rosemary died on December 9 2020. Since then my two granddaughters never call and I rarely see them.
There were those halcyon Saturdays when the doorbell would ring. I would open the door and there was Rebecca saying, “¿Cómo estás papi?”
How was I to know that those pleasant Saturdays with Lauren, Rebecca and Rosemary would cease as soon as they grew up? Would Rosemary alive be able to round them up for a visit?
Part of my loneliness is further affected by a broken heart.