Well-Swept Yard

Found

This photograph dates to 1899 and shows my Grandfather and Grandmother Allen (Julius Henry Allen, Lillian Eremine McKinley) on their wedding day. Showing front and back of the card photograph. The notes were made by Lucille Allen Back of photograph. No month/day has been determined for their 1899 marriage. This was the second marriage for Julius. His first wife, Josephine Farmer (also known as Mary Josephine and Josie) died 11 May 1897.

I graduated from Hopkins with a Ph.D. in Byzantine art and architecture and then turned my research efforts to the history of photography. On the face of it, that is a radical career jump. But Byzantium, in particular the Byzantine icon and the justifications for the icon intrigued me. The proper (working) icon had to bear a resemblance to the saint represented and had to be made "in the right way." Then there was a special kind of icon that was not made by human hands (acheiropoieta), images that miraculously appeared (the earliest example may have been the Veil of Veronica, an imprint of the face of Jesus left when Veronica used her veil to blot away the sweat on the face during the march to Golgatha). The icon, a representation rather than an idol, seemed to enjoy a special identity with the person represented.  I wondered if any post-Byzantine European civilization shared a belief in this very powerful kind of image and one day it hit me that the ge

Photographs reveal more than the subject. A photograph always speaks of the intention of the maker or the intention of the subject cooperating with the maker. Alexander Gardner’s Civil War “ What Do I Want, John Henry? ” speaks volumes on the social attitudes within the Army of Liberation . The decision of Roy Stryker to widely release only one image of the Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother series tells us about a sway from reportage to poignancy. The several views of Che talk to us about the cooperation of the photographer in establishing the fame of the hunters (everybody gets his chance). So, I do not want so much to see the Osama bin Laden death photographs as I would like to see them and think about what they mean, to see if I recognize an emotion or an illusion. Or maybe myself. But I am also content to wait for the release. After all, that will not be long. I can see them in the grocery store checkout next week.