The Magnifying Glass

Recently, I read a post in which a magnifying glass was mentioned. At present, I have no idea who wrote it. Sorry about that, but I am septuagenarian, so please just give me credit for gathering my diminishing mental resources to remember anything: anything at all. And then to actually write about it. What a clever septuawhatchamacallit am I.

But of course, that post made me think of my magnifying glass: the one that I wrote about ten years ago. Is it really ten years already? Ten?

Here's the short history. As far as I understand, it was first used by my maternal grandmother after she suffered vision problems following a bad fall. I am pretty sure that this would have been sometime in the 1940s as she died in 1949, two years after I cried my way into the world. (Apparently, she was unable to see me, her only grandson, or at least not very well.)

The Glass (as it was called) eventually made its way into my parents possession, and they used it as needed in their senior years. I remember them, particularly my dad, using it. There he is with it over there. → (The glass is to the bottom left of the frame, by the newspaper.)

I wrote about it in Through The Glass Dimly those ten years ago and again six years ago when Danica used it to probe Buppa's Big Bald Head.

Even as a septuagenarian I have reasonably good close-up vision, so I don't need to use the glass, except occasionally for the teeny tiny fine print found on certain containers. (You know the ones.) But that means I do use it somewhat, and isn't it at least a little remarkable for a magnifying glass to have such a pedigree? I mean, three generations already!. And in Buppa's Big Bald Head, Danica used it, and she is fifth generation. Crazy, eh?

It's silly, I know, but I hope The Glass makes it into Shauna's care someday and then, maybe, to Danica's household. Unless it originally came from elsewhere before grandmother used it, which would make it even older, it is approximately 80 years old now, and if Danica were to have it when she's 80, the glass would then be a century and a half old.

Here I insert the notion that my mother, as her cataracts were developing, had in her 80s — that the glass was wearing out and losing its potency. This amuses me whenever I think about it.

All of that is the background to introduce the two photos that are coming up because I think the context is rather important in this case.

You see, I thought that I should photograph myself with the glass. Sue was out when I finally got around to it, so I set the camera up on my tripod and fired it remotely using my phone while I sat at the table pretending to read something or other (the yellow pages directory) while peering through the glass.

Furthermore, I decided to don my hat, one that let me emulate Sherlock Holmes as best as I could. I think that we all picture Holmes peering intently through his magnifying glass while wearing that wonderful deerstalker hat, but my fedora would have to suffice.

I had a vision of sorts for what I wanted, which is highly unusual for me. I conceived the photos to be monochromatic, and I wanted them to be low key (dark), and a little on the gritty side.

And so, without further ado . . . Ta Da!

These are reasonably close to what I had in mind. I might tinker with them a bit still since the directory that I am reading is dark in the first photo and should be at least faintly visible, as it is in the second photo. However, I like the fact that I was more or less able to accomplish what I set out to do. (I have now done further editing but will leave these images as they were when I readied this post.)

Not bad for a septuawhatchamacallit. Eh what?