A Flickering Light Read online

  “I like that one,” Jessie said, pointing to a portrait of two men dressed as though they lived in biblical times.

  “It’s always best not to just announce that you like or don’t like something,” Mr. Bauer instructed, “but rather to say what you like about it or don’t. How it makes you feel, for example.”

  Jessie hadn’t thought much about putting feelings into words, let alone trying to figure out how the portrait affected her emotions. He urged her on, lifting his hand to the picture hanging on the wall. “Go ahead,” he said. “Tell me what you see there.”

  “I see strength in their faces,” she said. “The lines from their eyes are deep, as though they’ve weathered much. They look humble too. The man looking down is almost in prayer, and the other’s eyes are looking upward.”

  “The light makes their bald heads stand out,” Voe said.

  “But the light also complements the one man’s staff,” Jessie said. “It makes the whole picture look…warm. I like the way their beards appear soft too. Fluffy. And their cloaks are rich, but I don’t feel poorly looking at them. I feel…safe,” Jessie decided. “Safe and warm. It’s a fine photograph, Mr. Bauer.”

  “It is,” he said. “I didn’t take it, however. It’s from the Knaffl brothers out of Tennessee. You can see the name there.” He pointed to the small signature. “It’s become quite a famous plate and is as close to a painting as anything I’ve ever seen done with a camera. It was actually inspired by a painting called ‘Frieze of the Prophets’ by John Sargent.”

  “Should you show off someone else’s work in your reception room?” Voe again. “Won’t it lead your customers to believe their work is yours?”

  “He has his work here too,” Jessie defended. She’d moved around the room, looking for the little signature on each piece that told who the photographer was.

  “But you thought that one was his,” Voe said.

  That was true before she knew to look for signatures, but before she could respond, Mr. Bauer said, “I think it’s good to have before me, every day, the work of a master, someone I can emulate, to remind me of the possibilities in this…art. Yes. I think of this as an art and not just a commercial venture, though I can assure you that the Knaffl brothers have elevated commercial photography to a new level. It’s been said of that plate that if it had been arranged as an original piece and not as a copy of the painting, we would have a first example of creative art in photography. Such is one of the things I’m striving for. Creative art in studio photography.”

  “Was it all done at once?” Jessie asked. Mr. Bauer frowned. “I mean, did the brothers do things to the background of the picture afterward? Or was it developed just the way it looks?”

  Mr. Bauer’s eyes lit up like candlelight. “Very observant, Miss Gaebele. Very good question. I suspect that the lighting effect was created in the developing process with dodging.” Jessie frowned. “It’s a way of using one’s hand to limit light to certain sections on the plate, to cause an effect you want. It’s not only what the eye sees that makes a fine photographer but also the accoutrements, the way a subject is arranged, what surrounds it, what the shadows can do. And then of course what the workman creates in the darkroom. But it all begins with the artist’s eye.”

  “Workmen,” Voe said. “I don’t think of photographers as workmen, not like draymen or lumbermen. I’ve seen painters at carnivals, and they have just as much fun as the ones they’re painting. That’s what artists are, just fun people. Like Gypsies.”

  “You’re just saying that because you were named for a Gypsy,” Jessie told her, laughing.

  “Now, girls, we photographers are workmen. It is a labor to create these pieces, but it is good labor. There is great joy within it. Your carnival painters know that’s in part why people stop by to be painted—for the adventure, if you will. That doesn’t minimize the artistry. There’s nothing wrong with finding joy in work,” he said. “No one wants to have their photograph made by a drudge,” he added.

  “What’s a drudge?” Voe asked.

  “It comes from the German word for slave,” Mr. Bauer told her. “I don’t consider myself a slave to my work, though my wife might at times.” He straightened his tie at his narrow neck, pulled at his collar. “I consider my work an opportunity, and that’s why I keep that picture on my wall. There are opportunities everywhere in a workman’s day. That’s a lesson for you young women to remember rather than quibbling over Gypsies.”

  He moved the girls on, then, into the studio proper. One large room comprised the operating room, as Mr. Bauer called the place where subjects sat and had their photographs made. The room did not have a skylight, just a small circular window set quite high in one wall. On the opposite side of the room, a large bank of windows provided natural light, starting partway up the white wall and ending nearly at the ceiling. Leaded glass formed elongated diamond shapes from top to bottom. Jessie caught a look at herself in a round mirror on a stand off to the side. She pushed back loose strands of hair that had slipped from her bun.

  Chairs of various kinds graced the hardwood floors, some with but one arm, others made of white wicker. Curtains hung on rods beside small reflector screens that could be moved into position to add softness to the subject. Jessie tried to memorize each item while Mr. Bauer showed them where he kept the back drapes and rolls of carpet that could be spread out on the floor. In a side room he stored small benches and tables with a pot of dried flowers, vases, pillows, even books with different textures.

  “Props,” he told them, “to add interest or to set the viewer’s eye to a certain aspect of the subject.” Jessie’s mind began to swim with the details she would need to keep track of. This was nothing like pointing her Kodak at a flower and clicking, wondering what she’d get once the film was developed.

  In the center of the vast room stood the camera, a large, square apparatus draped with a black cloth. It was the true focus. Mr. Bauer had arranged it on a cabinet with a brass wheel on the outside, and Jessie realized instantly that by turning the wheel he’d be able to move the camera up and down. Wheels at the bottom of the cabinet made it possible to move in on the subject. With it, he could take a full stance, a half shot, and even a full facial view without the person ever having to change position. He’d have more options for printing and surely a better chance of framing a pose in a way that would please the customer.

  They walked through the printing room next, full of frames the size of trunks and brass ones small enough to hold in one’s palm. Cardboard mats of various shapes and colors showed cuts made by a sharp knife, and they were kept in a drawer built into the wall for such use. “It’s never finished until it’s in the perfect frame,” Mr. Bauer told them as he opened a door to a small room with another door on the opposite side.

  “The mysterious darkroom,” Voe said in a ghostly voice as Mr. Bauer pulled the first door shut behind them. “It’s pretty small.”

  The space the three of them stood in was close enough that Jessie touched Voe’s back with her fingertips, and she could sense Mr. Bauer just a foot or so behind her. She thought she smelled cigars on Mr. Bauer’s coat, though the scent wasn’t quite as strong as real smoke. Every scent seemed heightened in this little space.

  He punched the light and the room turned dark. “Hey,” Voe said. “I don’t see how you can get any work done in such a little darkroom.”

  “Please open the other door, Miss Kopp, if you would.”

  Voe did, and chemical scents assaulted Jessie’s nose as her eyes adjusted to the orange glow of the room. Shelves lined the sides, holding bottles and tins in the windowless room. A single faucet hung over a sink at the side, and the remainder of the room consisted of high wooden benches. Jessie assumed these were drying benches where prints could be laid after their chemical baths.

  “We were in the protection room, Miss Voe,” Mr. Bauer explained, “not the darkroom. This is where the developing occurs. We keep the protection room so that no light comes
in from the outside should someone forget that negatives are being worked on and ruin them with the exposure of light. Not all studios have such little entryways,” he told them, “but they will have some other way of telling a person not to enter under any circumstances. Signs or a gas bulb lit up just for that purpose. It could be very costly if one entered when one should not. When entering I recommend you always turn down the light as I did before opening the door into the darkroom.”

  He assured them they’d be spending plenty of time in this room, but for now the tour continued to a room that was little more than a closet with a small light on a table. Artists’ pads of paints sat on the desk beside brushes.

  “The retouching room,” he told them. “And occasionally people wish to have their pictures colored. It’s something we do here. But it requires extra training. If you want to earn additional money after the training period, this would be an area of skill you could acquire. I came in early to do a little work here myself.”

  Then he took them into what Jessie considered the business area, where they were to become familiar with the ledger book, entering prints and their prices, noting whether someone had paid or not, setting up appointments when people called the studio number. Most of this business work was accomplished in a small room off the reception area so the girls would be able to hear when someone entered but the records would be kept private. Jessie remained attentive. Money was important in her family: getting it, keeping it, and using it so a family could have security. Obviously Mr. Bauer had similar values.

  That first morning, she and Voe paid close attention to Mr. Bauer’s instructions, and while he rarely praised them, neither did he deride them. He answered questions thoroughly and in ways that Jessie could understand. When she didn’t, she waited for Voe to ask again, as Voe often needed to hear an instruction more than once in order to fully take it in. If she asked a question Jessie thought she knew the answer to, Jessie used those occasions to test herself on her knowledge, pleased when she could have answered the question with the same terms Mr. Bauer chose.

  A portrait of an attractive woman and two small boys hung in the office room, right where the eye could see it when looking out toward the reception room. Mr. Bauer didn’t talk about that picture though his name was on it, and so Jessie didn’t ask and neither did Voe, whose attention had been drawn to a piece of pottery sitting on a table.

  “This is pretty,” she said, picking it up.

  Mr. Bauer took it carefully from her. “It is. I acquired it while in North Dakota, from a Chippewa Indian there. I admired it and she gave it to me. Quite generous, considering…”

  “Considering what?” Voe asked.

  “Let’s just say it’s a precious piece, one that Mrs. Bauer prefers I keep here instead of at our home. I rather like the designs.”

  “They’re like the window diamonds in your studio,” Jessie said.

  Mr. Bauer turned to her, said nothing, but he had that candlelight in his eye again.

  “It’ll take some time,” he told them both as he set the pot back down on the table, “but you’ll want to ask the right questions when people come in or when they call about a sitting in order to make it easier to be ready for their session. There’s a great deal of preparation that goes into making an award-winning photograph,” Mr. Bauer said.

  “Who gives out such awards?” Jessie asked. “Like your gold medal that was stolen?”

  “The National Photographic Association. I attend their events regularly in Chicago or Philadelphia, Minneapolis, wherever they’re held. It means travel but it’s a worthy expense, for it’s there where one discovers new ideas and where work can be showcased for new commercial use.”

  “I like to travel,” Jessie said. “With my camera.”

  “We don’t take our cameras,” Mr. Bauer cautioned. “Unless we’re offering classes. We go there to learn new techniques, to meet old friends, make new ones.”

  “They probably don’t let women go there anyway,” Voe told her.

  “Ah, but they do. There are several female photographers besides your Jessie Tarbox Beals you encountered at the world’s fair, Miss Gaebele.” He turned to Jessie. “Mary Carnell of Philadelphia takes mostly children’s photographs. Miss Belle Johnson of Monroe City, Missouri, loves to photograph felines. Kittens,” he told Voe as her mouth opened to ask. “I suspect she does much more, but those were the ones she submitted at the last congress. Quite impressive. And of course, Frances Johnston. She’s made quite a name for herself as a garden and architectural photographer. Her self-portrait, done nearly ten years ago now, has become quite famous.”

  “How come?” Voe asked.

  Mr. Bauer’s face took on a sour look, and Jessie wondered if he wished he hadn’t brought the subject up. He cleared his throat. “Not that I’m condoning this, you understand. But it is a public photograph now.” He tugged at his mustache. “Well. It’s taken in her studio. She’s wearing a skirt and shirtwaist. She’s sitting in front of her fireplace.”

  “Sounds dull to me,” Voe said, gazing at her fingernails.

  “Well, it shows her…petticoat, while her legs are crossed at the knee instead of at the proper ankle, and we can see her striped stockings right up to that knee.”

  “Oh,” Voe said, looking interested now.

  “She holds a beer stein in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and she’s wearing a boyish hat. The portrait has done nothing to advance the cause of women photographers. In my opinion.”

  Jessie wondered where she could see this self-portrait but decided to wait until later to pursue that.

  “My mother would never let me pose like that,” Voe said.

  “I bet she isn’t married,” Jessie said.

  “My mother is so,” Voe said.

  “I was talking about Mrs. Johnston,” Jessie told her.

  “She is unmarried,” Mr. Bauer confirmed. “As a ‘bachelor girl,’ she spent months on a battleship with several hundred sailors taking photographs, traveled to greet Dewey when he returned from the Philippines, and her agent got those military photographs sold for nearly a thousand dollars.” He gained volume while he spoke, and Jessie thought he sounded irritated by the woman’s successes. His words clipped out short and were peppered with passion. Or maybe he didn’t like her commenting on the woman’s marital status. Maybe he didn’t like his employees commenting at all.

  “No one telling her she couldn’t, I suppose,” Voe said.

  “You’re right, Miss Kopp. A married woman with the responsibilities of hearth and home would find it difficult to do such things.”

  “But think of the freedom,” Jessie said. It was one thing for a woman to attend a fair, but to travel the world, to meet interesting people, to earn money doing what she loved and spend it as she saw fit—for family, for alms, for pleasure—that was truly privilege. “She can wander anywhere she wants and no one will question it so long as she carries a camera. What a grand life for a woman.” This first day on the job was proving to have insights she had never imagined.

  Jessie discounted the possibility that her words were responsible for blowing out that candlelight in Mr. Bauer’s eyes.

  Seeking Safety

  SPRING PASSED LIKE A SUMMER STORM, heightened with activity followed by tedious lulls. Jessie rarely had time for anything but work. Mr. Steffes had accepted her suggestion that she clean his shop at least three times a week. Her mother was happy she’d gotten her nickel back and earned more to boot. On those days, Jessie still had extra laundry, as her aprons were always covered with grime. She even turned down an invitation from Lilly to join friends at Latsch Beach along the river to see if the water was warm enough to swim in. “I’m just too tired,” she told her sister and welcomed instead a nap on the screened porch where the girls slept during the summer months.

  This photography was serious business that required constant attention. She made mistakes, mixed chemicals incorrectly, wasn’t as patient with clients as Mr. Bauer wanted. She
read books and his journals with discussions of apertures and such that might be beyond her, though she told not a soul of her fears. In her dreams she wasn’t a fine female photographer traveling to exotic places. Instead she stood on a ladder in precarious climes, often slipping just before she reached the top rung. She’d wake up with a heart-pounding start.

  September would be the time when she’d begin earning money and, she hoped, pass her certification test. Her plan was to stop working for Mr. Steffes after that. She’d convince Selma to take the three days after school. He’d recovered slowly from his fall, and having someone clean up made his life easier. It wasn’t difficult work, just messy, but Mama might not want her youngest girl working alone at Mr. Steffes’s shop late in the day. She’d overheard a concerned conversation between her parents about Selma’s daydreaming related to her “hobby,” as they called Selma’s singing. At least, she thought the conversation was about Selma. An after-school job might address Selma’s apparent distractions.

  Still, the bicycle wheels in the shop fascinated Jessie. She’d never paid much attention to mechanical things, but now that she spent those evenings attempting to clean and order Mr. Steffes’s shop, she found that the shapes and surfaces intrigued her. Jessie liked the way the spokes cast shadows on a grease tub behind the wheel, causing the steel pail to take on stripes. A closeup, taken with a camera, would make people wonder what it really was, what subject the photographer had meant to take, and cause a conversation. She could set the camera so it looked up and through the spokes and maybe move the tub behind it and just focus a small portion of the photograph on those spokes. It would be unusual. What she saw wasn’t like any photograph she’d ever seen, but then each photographer saw something different. That’s what Mr. Bauer told her. That’s what gave one a voice, or in this case, an eye.