[LargeFormat] A Blessing

[rstein]

Dear Friends,

     I have had a blessing today. And it didn't make my skin smoke and
bubble either, your suspicions to the contrary.

     I got an invitation to put on a display at a local museum - a cottage
homestead that was restored by a society in a seaside suburb near my home.
Tame stuff, really, but it was a free lunch and a chance to put out a table
of quasi-historical images, push a few business cards, and gas on to the
punters. You may have noticed that gassing on is one of my fortes.

     Thus it proved. Cards, gas, and cups of tea - right up until a little
old lady fronted up to the table and picked up my pile of  sepia toned
cabinet cards. I figured just another old lady, and didn't pay attention.
hah.

     " I like your cabinet cards - pity you didn't have them gold-embossed
with your studio name. We always did that in our studio".

    Yes, Folks, I had a lady - eighty if she was a day - who was a really
really studio photographer from the old days and who has been doing large
format work since she was 15 and has built studios of equipment and who has
done everything for real that I have been faking up for the last decade.
Perth and Fremantle were sort of backward for a lot of time but this means
that a lot of OOOOOLD processes surviverd into her working lifetime.

    Girls, I have a living treasure here. I am going round her place with as
many bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates and/or fibre-based paper as
I can muster and I am going to shamelessly exploit the old dear's knowledge.
Like I said  -  a blessing!

     Uncle Dick