PHOTOS: The Stamp Man

     About 37 years ago, an elderly couple were neighbors of ours in Long Beach, California. Jacob Margon was 96 and everyone called him the Stamp Man. He told me he had been collecting stamps for ninety years! The neighbors appreciated being able to buy current postage from him any time. Once he gave me some stamps which were old but unused. I used them on letters I sent out until mail carriers started asking me where I got them and I realized they were collector's items!
     I took this black and white photo of Mr. Margon before I knew anything about lighting. The only light source was the lamp on his marvelous honeycombed desk. When my husband and I printed the picture in the darkroom we shared with another couple, we had to burn the heck out of the lampshade to get the pattern in it to emerge. Mr. Margon's face is just a profile since I had no fill light but I guess it works because the photo took first place in the "People" category of a local photography contest at Tuttle Camera.
     The Margons had a small bedroom filled with large pieces of cherry wood furniture. Jacob's wife Paula said they had all belonged to the French actress Sarah Bernhardt and were a personal gift from her. The dresser and mirror unit were so tall they had to be cut in half to be brought into the house and were set side by side. I should have thought to take pictures of them. I'm sure she wouldn't have minded.
     I had printed, mounted and overmatted an 8 x 10 of the photo for a class assignment and had shown it to the Margons, promising I'd make another copy for them. (Privately I wasn't sure I could make an exact replica or even one as good. Attempting to get the lampshade over-exposed just right through the little cardboard cut-out we had made to hold over it while we gave that part of the scene extra exposure had taken hours and hours and had cost us a lot of expensive paper already.)
     Before I could get back to the darkroom, the Margon's grown son, a local doctor, knocked on our door and wanted to see it. When I told him I'd make another one for the family, he said, "I'll take this one!" He turned on his heel and walked out with it. It was both a great compliment and a great rudeness. In those days I only signed my first name, Jessica, so I knew no one would ever know who took the picture.
     I did make another but I don't think it is as good. (I don't really know because I can't compare them. It hangs on our wall and I photographed it through the glass to get what you see here.)
     The Margons eventually went into a convalescent home and then passed away. I tried to track down the son but I think he'd passed away also. If there were no other posterity and no one else wanted it, I would have liked to get that copy back.
     Oh well. I hope someone somewhere is enjoying it.