Inspiration: Autochromes by Etheldreda Janet Laing

Looking at old autochromes online never fails to make me wish I could go back in time  . . .  The colors in them may not be quite realistic, but they're usually prettier than real life--mostly pastel and soft focus and a little faded from time.  Everything looks so nice and lazy . . .  women walk around gardens in their cotton and lace dresses, with their hair done up like Edwardian theater stars, protected from the sun by straw hats and parasols.  Or they sit around on abnormally green lawns, looking a little bored, but in an idealistic and romantic sort of a way, as if they have all the time in the world to sit around.  Which to me sounds like heaven.

At least that's the sort of world that Etheldreda Janet Laing captured in her Edwardian era photos.  I found her work on this amazing site devoted to autochromes called The Dawn of Colour, which has photos that go far beyond my romantic autochrome generalizations, with subjects much more exotic and maybe a little more realistic than Laing's pretty scenes of country life.  But for some reason I like Laing's autochromes best.  

Apparently Laing was the wife of a well-to-do barrister in Oxford, living in a "large well-appointed house" complete with a darkroom for her photography hobby.  She mainly took photos of her two daughters, who always look weirdly calm and serene, with their hair always in place.  They look like the sort of sisters who've never had a fight in their lives, though I doubt that was the case.   They probably fought just as much as my sisters and I did growing up, and I bet that they got annoyed with their mother for making them pose with bouquets of flowers.  But don't they look like they belong in some wonderful old escapist, Edwardian novel?  

Photos found at the Science and Society Picture Library.