3 and a half year old Elle with Mr. Z. and a little pet whose name I don't recall |
After the Birthday Party, with Gumby and Pokey. Elle is 5, Bee is 4 |
The reason we started making slides is that I'd taken a beautiful picture of Elle when she was just two years old, with a little sparrow perched on her shoulder. We had rescued this baby bird earlier in the day.
Elle was seated on our lovely brown horse hair chair, the one that matched the couch in the first picture. These were two beautiful pieces of vintage furniture, with wooden carving on the fronts of the arms. But that's a story for another time. You could find that sort of thing in the local junk yard in those days. Very 20's. The sun was coming in the window behind her. It was a portrait quality photo, and taken with an Instamatic.
I sent my only copy to my Aunt B because she was dying, and I wanted to give her some pictures of the girls, quickly. Bee is named for her.
I then had attempted to have some copies and an enlargement made but the people making it,sadly, had mishandled the negatives and had put a HUGE slash across Elle's face in it. The negative was ruined. My Auntie, who lived back east, could not see well enough to sort her photos and look for the original.
When we told the nice man in the camera shop (where we bought our first truly good camera) what had happened, he told me that the problem was negatives was that they were pretty fragile, and I should use slides for my photos because these were handled a with a lot more care than were negatives.
I still can remember the moment that the picture was taken, the golden light coming in the window, lighting up the baby sparrow and my little daughter's face. I knew that the inside light was right at the edge of being too dim and the sun rays coming in where angled very low. But, it was a perfect snap, and the picture was sort of a little miracle. It was so magical when we saw that first print.
I'm a Grandma, I like to tell long family stories.
Thanks for going down memory lane with me.
Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteAny time, Wendy, and, truly, thanks for reading!
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