Who Were They?

  

I picked up this CdV because of the child’s eyes. They are quite haunting…and a little creepy. Click the photo to enlarge it. I wondered if this might be an example of a photographer having painted eyes onto the photo plate of a memento mori photo. The shop was closing, I had to go, so I couldn’t sit and examine the photo there (besides I didn’t have my magnifying glass with me, my poor eyeballs don’t see like they used to!). After having enlarged the photo on the computer, I have concluded that the child has light colored eyes, probably light blue, but is also quite alive. Often in old photos, the light eye colors photograph in light gray. Green and blue eyes have many variations to their natural colors, but the old photo processing couldn’t capture the nuances of them. With such light eyes on this baby, they photograph almost white.

The photographer was T. M. Wells in Pekin, IL.