Read Online Eight Girls Taking Pictures by Whitney Otto - Free Book Online
Authors: Whitney Otto
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rather fancy myself as the “healing physician.”
(b) Being an Architect: Exams too difficult.
(c) Being a Farmer: Very interested. Hanker after wide open spaces. Family hostile.
(d) Being an Author: Have an itch to write. Don’t know how to set about it.
(e) Being an Actress: Ditto. Ditto. Not particularly stagestruck but have written and acted in plays since the age of seven.
(f) Being a Hospital Nurse: Not sufficiently self-sacrificing. Hate the thought of bedpans, night-duty, and smells.
(g) Devoting myself to the Suffragette cause: Tempting. Would not solve economic problem.
The economic problem was making money of her own. Money, she knew, was freedom.
Amadora Allesbury had never been in a room with so much pink. The persistence of pink throughout the furnishings of the house was impressive, but it was the interior of the photographer’s studio that really made this woman’s commitment to the color explicit. There were pink velvet drapes, pink silk roses, pink damask on the upholstered chairs. The white bearskin rug wore a wide satin ribbon of pink around its furry neck. There were vases of rose quartz, Japanese statues of pink jade, and a series of white porcelain snow leopards, all with pink sapphire eyes. Even the photographs taken by the photographer had a pink hue.
Lallie Charles was forty years old but didn’t look any age in particular. Amadora noticed that this wasn’t unusual with women who had chosen not to marry, or to be taken care of by anyone. It was as if, by taking themselves out of the conventional life, they interrupted their own aging, and there were no children’s ages by which to judge them, no graying husband or pensioned-off father with which to gauge the years.
As would be the case for Amadora in the future, she didn’t use her observations as precursors to judgment; they were simply observations. Though she wouldn’t have said this of herself at seventeen, it was as true then as it was at seventy: Amadora was more interested in watching, and in listening to, the lives of others than she was in making moral pronouncements. And it wasn’t because she felt life was a free-for-all that she held her tongue—it was because she liked to be entertained, and people are so much more forthcoming when they sense an engagedaudience. This, it could be said, was the source for her natural optimism. Her open mind. Her open heart. Her tendency to find the humor in most things.
She did not reserve this last bit only for others; she was quick to laugh at her own flaws. The idea of everyone being “only human” was good news, she would say. Most of the time anyway.
There was no more popular photographer in London in 1911 than Lallie Charles. Her portraits were everywhere: in newspapers, magazines, people’s homes. The women she photographed were feminine and soft and pink. They came to her studio with changes of clothes and maids to help them dress and undress. They sat in demure poses.
It was Lallie Charles’s popularity that prompted Amadora to contact her once Amadora decided that the best way for her to go about making a living was to become a photographer.
“So,” said Lallie Charles, “tell me why you are here.”
Amadora hesitated, wondering how ill-mannered it would be to remind Miss Charles that she had written to her about a position as a pupil-assistant and that Miss Charles had answered she thought it would be a fascinating proposition, why not come by, say, on Thursday at 4:00. Amadora didn’t exactly understand what Lallie Charles meant by “fascinating” unless she would find it fascinating that Amadora’s presence in her parlor was the result of a whim, an impulse not unlike that of a child proclaiming her intention to be a circus acrobat. She considered confessing that she had never taken a single picture in her life but instead said, “I’m interested in becoming a photographer,” resisting the urge to end the statement as a question.
A butler came
(b) Being an Architect: Exams too difficult.
(c) Being a Farmer: Very interested. Hanker after wide open spaces. Family hostile.
(d) Being an Author: Have an itch to write. Don’t know how to set about it.
(e) Being an Actress: Ditto. Ditto. Not particularly stagestruck but have written and acted in plays since the age of seven.
(f) Being a Hospital Nurse: Not sufficiently self-sacrificing. Hate the thought of bedpans, night-duty, and smells.
(g) Devoting myself to the Suffragette cause: Tempting. Would not solve economic problem.
The economic problem was making money of her own. Money, she knew, was freedom.
Amadora Allesbury had never been in a room with so much pink. The persistence of pink throughout the furnishings of the house was impressive, but it was the interior of the photographer’s studio that really made this woman’s commitment to the color explicit. There were pink velvet drapes, pink silk roses, pink damask on the upholstered chairs. The white bearskin rug wore a wide satin ribbon of pink around its furry neck. There were vases of rose quartz, Japanese statues of pink jade, and a series of white porcelain snow leopards, all with pink sapphire eyes. Even the photographs taken by the photographer had a pink hue.
Lallie Charles was forty years old but didn’t look any age in particular. Amadora noticed that this wasn’t unusual with women who had chosen not to marry, or to be taken care of by anyone. It was as if, by taking themselves out of the conventional life, they interrupted their own aging, and there were no children’s ages by which to judge them, no graying husband or pensioned-off father with which to gauge the years.
As would be the case for Amadora in the future, she didn’t use her observations as precursors to judgment; they were simply observations. Though she wouldn’t have said this of herself at seventeen, it was as true then as it was at seventy: Amadora was more interested in watching, and in listening to, the lives of others than she was in making moral pronouncements. And it wasn’t because she felt life was a free-for-all that she held her tongue—it was because she liked to be entertained, and people are so much more forthcoming when they sense an engagedaudience. This, it could be said, was the source for her natural optimism. Her open mind. Her open heart. Her tendency to find the humor in most things.
She did not reserve this last bit only for others; she was quick to laugh at her own flaws. The idea of everyone being “only human” was good news, she would say. Most of the time anyway.
There was no more popular photographer in London in 1911 than Lallie Charles. Her portraits were everywhere: in newspapers, magazines, people’s homes. The women she photographed were feminine and soft and pink. They came to her studio with changes of clothes and maids to help them dress and undress. They sat in demure poses.
It was Lallie Charles’s popularity that prompted Amadora to contact her once Amadora decided that the best way for her to go about making a living was to become a photographer.
“So,” said Lallie Charles, “tell me why you are here.”
Amadora hesitated, wondering how ill-mannered it would be to remind Miss Charles that she had written to her about a position as a pupil-assistant and that Miss Charles had answered she thought it would be a fascinating proposition, why not come by, say, on Thursday at 4:00. Amadora didn’t exactly understand what Lallie Charles meant by “fascinating” unless she would find it fascinating that Amadora’s presence in her parlor was the result of a whim, an impulse not unlike that of a child proclaiming her intention to be a circus acrobat. She considered confessing that she had never taken a single picture in her life but instead said, “I’m interested in becoming a photographer,” resisting the urge to end the statement as a question.
A butler came
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