Monday, November 12, 2012

Everlasting beauty

This is my grandmother Ruth, or Gaca as I have called her all my life. She was probably in her 30's early 40's in this picture. Her beauty to me is timeless. Her hair was always done and her cheeks always flush from working endlessly around a hot stove. Even today, at 83, she still finds it necessary and important to go out of the house with her hair permed and lipstick applied. It doesn't matter if we are just going down the road for a quick bite to eat. There is something nostalgic to me about the older generation, the way they get fancy to go out for a meal. It shows they value the time and the money they are spending and the company that they are choosing to dine with. My generation is casual, maybe excessively so and I find myself longing for simpler times when people really made it an occasion when going out.
I love looking at old photographs. I try to imagine what was happening on that particular day in that person's life. I want to know who took the photo and for what purpose. Photographs are magical to me. They capture an image, a particular moment in time that will never be the exact same again. In photography, there is always more than meets the eye.