The Pause That Refreshes
A carefully composed photograph captures a relaxing late summer afternoon in Camden.
Theresa Parker Babb knew how to shake things up in turn-of-the-century Camden. The wife of the superintendent of the Knox Woolen Mill in town, Babb, at top, second from left, used her social standing and ambition to create the Camden Community Hospital, reach the summit of Maiden Cliff with the Camden Outing Club (and in a skirt, no less!), and discuss literature at the Monday Evening Reading Club. She also used it to round up models and locations for her budding photography hobby. In this striking image, captured on Sherman's Point in Camden's outer harbor during late summer 1900, Babb has convinced three friends and an older bespectacled chaperone identified as Miss Merriam, at bottom, to perch with her at low tide on the seaweed and barnacle-covered rocks.Despite the sweltering afternoon sun, the two women at right wear dark, heavy woolen skirts and tight collars, while Babb and the woman at left are dressed in lighter cotton clothing. The labels on the glass bottles are illegible, but we can only guess that the dark liquid contained within the bottles was Hires Rootbeer or one of scores of sodas bottled in Maine at the time, rather than the scandalous liquor that some modern viewers might assume it to be. The ruse is furthered by the scowl on Miss Merriam's face, at lower center.
Such scorn is, of course, yet another deliberate detail in this careful composition. The person behind the camera — likely an older friend who accompanied Babb on many of her shoots and who appears in several other photographs — must have used a tripod to achieve such remarkable clarity. But Babb has placed a hand-held box camera, an Eastman Kodak No. 2 Bulls-Eye, in the lap of the woman at far left, a clue that this scene is more orchestrated than it first appears. The direction of the women's gazes bounce the viewer from subject to subject, ending with stern Miss Merriam and the pocket watch pinned to her blouse.
Only one detail has escaped this artist's manipulations; while three of the women savor their beverages, the woman at far left has already finished hers, perhaps choosing the relief of a cool drink on a summer afternoon over the needs of a meticulous photographer.
Such scorn is, of course, yet another deliberate detail in this careful composition. The person behind the camera — likely an older friend who accompanied Babb on many of her shoots and who appears in several other photographs — must have used a tripod to achieve such remarkable clarity. But Babb has placed a hand-held box camera, an Eastman Kodak No. 2 Bulls-Eye, in the lap of the woman at far left, a clue that this scene is more orchestrated than it first appears. The direction of the women's gazes bounce the viewer from subject to subject, ending with stern Miss Merriam and the pocket watch pinned to her blouse.
Only one detail has escaped this artist's manipulations; while three of the women savor their beverages, the woman at far left has already finished hers, perhaps choosing the relief of a cool drink on a summer afternoon over the needs of a meticulous photographer.
- By: Joshua F. Moore
