I don't have a picture of Selma the way she looked that first night. I was much too busy falling for her to take pictures. (Besides, I doubt a mere machine could quite have captured the effect.) I do, however, have a couple of pictures taken within the year. The first is her High School portrait, a wallet-sized copy of which has been in my wallet for more than 25 years.

Selma's High School portrait
Selma's High School portrait

It's hard for me to be objective about the next two pictures. I took them myself, and by the time I did, I'd not merely fallen for her, I'd fallen in love with her. To my eye, the pictures convey both my feelings and a bit of the reason behind them. Others will have to judge if that's really so.

Close up Sitting I took them a couple of months after we met, out in the woods behind the college. I've since lost the negatives, and the only prints I have are the ones that have been in my wallet ever since.

These GIFs are scans of two of them. The third I'll keep to myself. The prints were darker and more contrasty than the GIFs, but that made them rather muddy here, so I've rebalanced them.

The second one (to the right, as seen with most browsers), comes closest of any picture I've seen to capturing what she looked like that first night. If you can imaginge a 5 or 6 foot long pink scarf worn as a head-band with the ends hanging down to elbow-level, and her eye not quite as hidden but still playing peek-a-boo behind her hair, it comes fairly close. Her smile was both bold and a little coy as it is in the picture, though the black and white photo doesn't do justice to the green sparkle in her hazel eyes. The bright colored blouse and tight brown corderoys did a lot to accentuate the figure that her hair only hints at in the picture.

Brons
September 21, 1995