[jdviole2]

Having received a blessing to continue from Seal and encouragement from others I will follow my plan to post some more about Helena in this thread. As I said it will take a great deal of time to upload and then digitally cleanup the slides/prints but will post from time to time. Note the title change to "in front of the camera" since she really didn't "model" for these pictures. In the first picture uploaded today you will notice that she is removing a camera from its case. She started taking pictures with a Leica camera her dad loaned her. Later, at her request, I bought a Minolta SLR and set of lenses and other equipment for her. She was a very good photographer. In fact when I pick landscapes to paint, more often than not I find that it is one of her photos that I am painting. That particular photo was taken about 1980 somewhere in Colorado. The second picture is taken in Monument Valley around 1987. The last picture (a bit out of focus, there wasn't enough room or light to take a really sharp shot) is taken in Naples Italy in 1974. I was with the navy stationed in Naples and she came over to stay for a month after we got married. The location is a Kentucky Fried Chicken store. I guess they didn't think that Kentucky would mean anything to the Italians so the store was actually called "The Colonel's Special Chicken". It was just a "hole in the wall" store but was the real deal. A very strange feeling eating very familiar food in a totally foreign environment.