"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies" Antony and Cleopatra (Act II, Scene II) William Shakespeare

As the portrait photographer that I amm I can assert that hundreds of persons have faced my camera since I started taking photographs in Austin, Texas in 1959. Behind mem as inspiration, I had all the family albums that my mother kept and often showed me.

It is difficult to figure out (unless you quote Shakespeare) the infinite variety that two eyes, one nose, one mouth and two ears are able to display.

This last month, with the use of my newish 28 inch wide Acer monitor, I have been exploring my many files. I am now standardizing their names as some of them have their first name and others their surname. I am now using surname followed by a comma and the first name.

I will be buying exterior hard drives and will be transferring those files, so should my computer do what so many computers eventually do, they will be in a safe place.

Because of my advanced age, I find myself meticulously fine tuning these file images. Some had dust I did not see the first time, others need more contrast or to be darker. When I am gone, these files will be some sort of legacy.

Best of all I am finding with the help of the wide screen, gems that I overlooked with my old Dell CRT monitor.

Case in point for today’s blog are some photographs of jeweller Susan Fiedler. My files (no digital pictures) are in envelopes with no date. I must have taken these in the beginning of this century. I met her at an exhibition at the Exposure Gallery, a photo gallery now sadly gone.

Because I was subjected to pushy magazine art directors and editors to do stuff differently (I am the photographer that I am today because of them), I discovered in Fiedler’s file some photographs that I have no idea how I did them. If asked I doubt I could repeat the look.

As for Susan Fiedler, when she faced my camera, she was my Cleopatra.