You Need Hands

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt shows a lady playing a harp. Was she a famous harpist or is the harp merely a prop? I have no idea but thinking about it reminded me of the time my mother in law purchased a portrait sitting for Terry and I. As some of you already know I dislike having my photograph taken so I wasn't looking forward to it. When we arrived, the photographer spent a great deal of time arranging us in such a way that my hands (which he declared the most elegant he had ever seen) were evident in every shot. I'm sure he used the same compliment over and over again, but it worked and the photographs turned out well. 

Smiling faces thanks to elegant hands!

Some years later we purchased a collection of Carte-de-visite photographs. Neither Terry nor I had much interest in them, but we did like the album they came in. Luckily, we kept both the album and the photographs and as our fascination with family history grows so we've begun to appreciate them. Looking at them now it's interesting to note how many of the sitters are holding props. Are those props employed as a distraction rather like the photographer distracted me?

Books are evident in many of the images;

A different photographer but once again the sitter is holding a book.

The design on the back of this card is almost as nice as the image on the front.

Holding a photograph while being photographed was another popular choice.

Both of these examples were produced by W. Vick Portrait & Landscape Photographer, London Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom.  The two ladies appear to be sitting in the same chair and holding the same photograph. They also have very similar hairstyles so it could be the same woman photographed at different times.

This was one of my favourite images until I took a closer look. What on earth is wrong with the cat? One ear appears to be transparent or missing, and its eyes are very strange...

Could this be a post-mortem image as mentioned over at Sepia Saturday a couple of weeks ago? The woman looks very much alive but there is something strange about the material of her dress (see above) - the more I look at it the more it reminds me of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.

Alfred S Fisk artist & Photographer was responsible for the following image. He offered copies enlarged to life size at any time. He also advertised views of churches, mansions, etc., to order in any part of the country!

A couple of the Carte-de-visite images in the album

and a decorative page from the same album.

The title of this post was prompted by the song of the same name.




It's now time to hand you over to Sepia Saturday