2021—Reminded of a Wedding Corsage

My parents were married in January of 1940 at my grandmother’s house in Alameda, California. Photographs from the event, all black and white or sepia, show my mother wearing an orchid corsage on her simple crocheted dress. When she passed away at age 97 six years ago, I discovered that orchid pressed between pieces of waxed paper in a small box. I suppose it was once white but it is now flat and sepia tone. I kept it and placed it between two sheets of glass. This is a photograph of a living Phalaenopsis Orchid that is actually yellow with reddish streaks. After creating a stacked image from 113 photographs the color seemed dull and uninteresting so I changed the picture control in Adobe Camera Raw from Standard to Charcoal which seems to mimic sepia tone photographs. The change instantly reminded me of my mother’s wedding corsage and I thought the sepia coloring made the image much more appealing.