Poem: Hand-Tinted Photographs

July 2011

Stephen Page


Hand-Tinted Photographs

We take it for granted
these days. Every mobile phone
is a camera, a news station,
can upload images instantly
to the World Wide Web.
Breaking news
and breaking our hearts.
It wasn't ever thus
although colour photography
has existed as long as the process itself
it didn't become available to all of us
until the 1970s, and Eastman and Kodak.
Before then
if we wanted our wedding photographs
in colour, they were hand-tinted
by artists, just like Margaret
at my art class.
She has seen the world take on colour
has brought colour to our cheeks
and for all the right reasons.
The world has changed so much
and so quickly in the scheme of things.
No wonder we do not grasp all the changes
across the generations.
It takes longer to adjust
than to simply take them for granted
as most of us do.