Sonia 044

All amateur photography was done in black and white until the early 1970's so this series of Sonia posing in these glasses starts with two nostalgic portraits in black and white.
These bifocals were made by a company called Essel. I bought them in my early days as a collector at the "Waterlooplein" flea market in my native Amsterdam. The price was probably not more than one Guilder. Being a poor student with irregular income from music gigs only, a guilder was a lot of money. Right after I passed my final exam at secondary school, there was the traditional father and son talk about the next step. My father asked me about my preference. The first option mentioned by me was a sabbatical year in which contacts could be made within the music industry. I was a prolific singer-songwriter and there were people who saw the hit potential in some of my songs. My father turned this option down, saying that the army would call me straightaway and there would be no time for music altogether. He was right but deep down I also felt that he did not like the idea of his son being thrown between the sharks. It's safe to say that there was never an inch of a business man in me and even now, I refuse to turn this popular weblog (nearly two million page views, without any advertising or even linking to the social media) into a source of income. It's so much nicer to the viewers to keep the weblog free from obtrusive commercial pollution. And didn't the French government donate the patent on photography to the entire world, straight after they bought out its inventor Daguerre in the late 1830's?
One option rejected, my father asked me about a second option for a future career and my answer was that I wanted to become an optician. There was - and still is - an excellent education program for optometrists in Utrecht, within travelling distance of Amsterdam. It was a big disappointment to me when my father rejected this option. His argument was that this was not a program at university level and that I was far too intelligent to do the step down. Again, there was an unspoken secondary motive from his side. My father never understood my life long fascination with glasses and perhaps he thought that there was something kinky about it. Fathers had more power over their children in the late 1960's than they have nowadays. However, I told him that we could talk about the university but that I would start a collection of prescription glasses as compensation for the forbidden career opportunity. I will not go into the rest of the father and son talk as it's not relevant for this weblog. Early roots.... I have been a glasses collector ever since and it was great to bring the collection to life with the photo sessions posted on this weblog. In fact, I still enjoy it and it's reassuring to know that I am not alone in my fascination with glasses.