Emma 006

The Rx of the lenses in these drop temple glasses by Nouvelle Ligne is about the same as the Italian glasses in the first series. The only difference is that here the model's right eye is "leading". Emma selected the glasses with great care. Here we see a perfect match. The clear frame provides a lovely contrast and the arms are long enough to make the glasses fit properly.

Emma 005

Drop temple glasses were quite popular between the mid 1970's and the mid 1980's and it's a great pity that they dropped out of sight afterwards. The style was especially chosen by ladies with fairly mild prescriptions. Opticians warned high myopic ladies about the lack of stability. The huge, airy frames of the mid 1970's were fitted with heavy glass lenses. My ex-wife used a beautiful giant pair of Piave glasses and her lenses (-6 / -7) were over a centimeter thick at the edges. High index lenses only started to appear when the drop temple style became unfashionable.

Emma 004

Glasses: Nouvelle Ligne, early / mid 1980's (drop temple glasses)
[L: -3.00; c-0.50 o / R: -1.75; c-0.25 o]

Emma 003

Just like Enschede in the old days, the main employment in Gronau was found in the textile industry. After the rather sudden collapse of the industry in the early 1970's, there was a general feeling of apathy in the area. Gronau is not a spectacular place but the town center has a friendly atmosphere and it offers a nice variety in "scenery" within a circle of a few hundred meters.

Our meeting point at the day of the photo shoot was the terrace of a restaurant called Extrablatt. When Emma arrived, a large table was filled with well over 100 glasses and several ladies on the terrace had tried some pairs. It's always fun to see and hear the reactions during the preparation of a photo shoot on location. However, after the selection process of the glasses we decided to leave the terrace and start the actual photo shoot in a quiet street.

The funny thing is that Emma confided to me that she does not like to wear glasses in everyday life but of course, posing in a great variety of styles can be a fun experience. A gentle start is always instrumental in a first photo shoot with a new model. Here we see lovely Emma posing in a stylish pair of Italian glasses from the late 1980's. One of the lenses is just a touch above her own mild prescription.

Emma 002

A question frequently asked during interviews (and talks in general) is, "Where on earth do you find all these great models?".
Early in August, I had a lunch on the terrace of a small Vietnamese restaurant in a quiet town called Gronau, just across the German border. Two girls landed at the next table, chatting away lively in the English language. It was immediately clear that the eldest girl had a real model face. Equally important, she also gave the impression of an open minded personality. After a while, I gently introduced myself and asked her if she'd be interested to do a photo shoot in the near future. Much to my delight, the young lady showed interest in this not exactly everyday request. A week later, we met at the same terrace to discuss the practical details of a photo shoot in prescription glasses.

Emma 001

Photo shoot: September 2nd, 2015
Location: Gronau (Germany)

Glasses: nameless, made in Italy, late 1980's
[L: -1.75 / R: -3.00 / var add 1.25]

Rx model: L=R: -1.25

Newspaper article (interview) about "Ladies behind crystal veil"

On August 22th, I did a couple of concerts at SAIL Amsterdam, accompanying a shanty choir called "ClipperS Crew" on the tin whistle. A lovely journalist called Marjon Kok attended the concerts and the choir director (a former Eurovision Song Festival winner in 1975) sent her to me for a talk. After a while, the journalist said that my life story would make a fine newspaper article all by itself. She called to the house last week and sure enough, we talked until the cows came home. The article appeared in the newspaper "Tubantia Twentsche Courant" (circulation: 137.000) on October 9th. The vast majority of the article is about my photography project "Ladies behind crystal veil". A slide show exhibition will be opened tomorrow in "De Vrijhof" art gallery in Enschede.
Models shown are:
- top row (L to R): Simona, Iris, Sohaila, Daisy, Marieke and Lydia
- second row (L to R): Sandra, Iris, Nel, Farishta and Marieke
- middle "row": Beata (between my feet) and Nel (in my hand, the very first photo I ever saw of her)
- lower row, upside down (L to R): Emma, Sohaila, Nadya, Jennifer, Esther, Sohaila, Iris, Leah and Juliette