Dear Friends and Family,
I hope this email finds you all in good health! My grandson James took this photograph of me atop Whiteface Mountain on one of those picture perfect summer days in the Adirondacks, so perfect that I couldn’t resist turning the photo into a retro- style postcard for you!
I have some wonderful news which reminded me of another portrait which has been a valued keepsake my whole life, one which I call “Window Shopping.”
Window Shopping
One of the best things about walking in town is browsing store windows…this pair of shoes, that book, a vase, all the visuals inviting our interest.
The little girl in the photograph above is me, no doubt lost in window shopping reverie somewhere on Cape Cod. My Mother or Father certainly took the photograph and made the print. You’ll recall that I mentioned their Leica camera as one of the only belongings my parents brought out of Germany upon our immigration to the United States. And wherever we lived, my Mom turned one of the bathrooms into a darkroom where she would carefully process the film and develop the prints.
A box of Pond’s Face Cream is visible in the drugstore window. Before everything became so focused on specialty beauty products, women were more likely simply to pick up a jar of Pond’s. But I’m sure it was something else that had caught my attention that day. My summer was beautiful and seemingly endless. Perhaps time passes differently for us at a young age since our experiences are all so brand new and our responsibilities so few?
My First Photography Gig
About new experiences and responsibilities, in the above photo I am in front of the ice cream shop in our small town of Essex where, in addition to ice cream and other goodies, my fine art cards are now available! Rose Kaszuba, proprietor and a fantastic chef, kindly invited me to feature my work at the shop. Rose has beautifully appointed her own store window with all manner of delicious edibles, and the Essex Ice Cream Shop gets a lot of traffic from the Essex, NY to Charlotte, VT Ferry, which docks just around the corner.
So, I find myself once again in front of a store window, this time lingering over my own work! I carefully chose a beautiful wooden stand for the cards and assembled it from the kit. While customers enjoy an ice cream cone with sprinkles, they peruse my custom printed Adirondack Photography art cards.
At 84, I am so happy to be starting my professional photography career, proving that one is never too young to start anything!
Stay well everyone,
Lots of Love,
Barb