![Peterson [Sven Petersen?] and family](../../media/files/86fb471e0533a8b5ea13883aa3ea4fc826d7a5e2_1392920294.jpg)
1870-1875
Glass photonegative
Engineer and mill owner Seren Petersen, wife Maria and family crowded into the studio. Of their 12 children, the last five (including the youngest here), died before the age of two. The blur to the right is the photographer’s assistant, accidentally captured during the lengthy exposure.
Life was a serious business in 1870
but only if you knew what year it was.
Being told what to do, where to stand or how to sit
may apply to most of us
but never to a baby.
A child is a child
but adults and people on their way there
they are something else.
Surprise and delight
two emotions a child knows well.
Where are mine? Where have they gone?
See this girl's joy
something has happened
something, to her eyes, for the first time.
Life was a serious business in 1870
but only if you knew what year it was.
*
But, who's that? In the background
there to the right.
A ghostly image. What's this man doing there?
He's caught in the frame
in the wrong time and place.
Caught between worlds.
- after Peterson [Sven Petersen ?] and family - a2824149
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