Augenblick & Geier
The day Waldo Geier’s father was buried in the potter’s field, the old man’s creditors descended on the house in a mob, rushing the door and setting to wrangle with one another over the values of common objects such as chamber pots or pewter spoons. Waldo made himself scarce and set out into the city to seek his fortune.
Waldo Geier thought himself well-attuned to the capricious ways of good fortune, ever aware that it often presented itself in odd ways. He was thus intrigued when he came upon a curious sign hanging over the door of a shop, the gilt letters seeming to glow of their own accord:
M. Augenblick, Photographer
Family Portraits
Memento & Vignette
Waldo Geier stopped and peered through the grimy window. A paper sign leaned against the glass.
Help Wanted– Experienced Photographer’s Assistant. Inquire Within.
Waldo understood none of this, but guessed it was luck tapping him on the shoulder. He strode in, snatching the paper sign and crumpling it into his pocket. An old man hunched over the desk, his threadbare waistcoat looking like a relic from the last age.
“I am here about the job,” Waldo said, his voice excessively loud in the dim room.
“I see,” said the old man. “You have experience with photography?”
“I know everything about it,” Waldo lied. Then, perhaps sensing the improbability of such a statement, added, “that is, almost everything.”
The old man stroked his chin. The sign had been in the window three months and this brash young charlatan was the only person to inquire about the job. There was also the matter of eighty barrels of gallic acid in his cellar, purchased at a discount the year before. It had proven to be defective, the silver liquid congealed into a thick green slime that smelled like a gangrenous limb. Those barrels needed to be moved, and this boy looked strong.
“Excellent,” said the old man. “My name is M. Augenblick. I can pay you a shilling a day.”
“Bed and board included?” said Waldo, instinctively pressing his advantage.
M. Augenblick considered this. “Less sixpence a week, and no suppers.”
Waldo extended his hand, and thus the deal was sealed.
M. Augenblick had never made a better bargain, for Waldo proved to be an enthusiastic and uncomplaining apprentice. He was strong and he was willing. Shrewd, too. He had the wonderful idea to affix printed labels to the barrels and sell the noxious liquid to the local hospital as roborative tincture to cure the yellow pox.
Once the matter of the barrels had been resolved, M. Augenblick’s most ardent desire was to instruct the boy in the finer points of the photographer’s art. He gave him many lectures on the subject, and demonstated the equipment’s various functions.
The trouble was that there was no opportunity to give Waldo practical experience. M. Augenblick’s studio was in a poor neighborhood whose residents could hardly afford food, let alone portraiture. Since he was a portraitist, M. Augenblick’s professional ethics forbade him to make photographs of non-human subjects. They needed a living model.
Several weeks passed without opportunity. Waldo was gowing restless. One evening after polishing the camera’s lens for the thousandth time, he spoke to M. Augenblick.
“Sir,” he said. “It is well known that fortune is bald behind.”
The old man cocked an eye at him. “Are you saying, Waldo, that we must make our own luck?”
“Indeed I am, sir,” said Waldo. “It can’t be worse than waiting for luck to find us.”
“I will take it under consideration, Waldo,” said M Augenblick.
It was the very next evening that a thoroughly intoxicated tramp attempted to urinate in the doorway. As the man fumbled his buttons, M. Augenblick glanced at Waldo. Waldo nodded and sprang through the door. He pulled the staggering beggar inside the studio and forced the astonished man into a heavy oak armchair. M. Augenblick had spent his youth at sea, so it was no matter for him to secure the drunkard to the chair with a length of rope.
The man came up from his stupor to find his hands and feet immobilized. He began to howl, so M. Augenblick poured sulfurous ether onto a rag and bade Waldo hold it firmly to the man’s face. The tramp possessed enormous vigor despite his inebriation and for several anxious minutes writhed like a ferret. At last he slumped into such slack unconsciousness that the ropes alone kept him upright.
M. Augenblick leapt into action. He rummaged his closet and produced a shabby topcoat, a nearly new bowler hat, a crisp white collar with red silk tie. He directed Waldo to dress the unconscious man while he himself arranged the background setting. He fetched various pieces of furniture and knick-knacks until the studio had the appearance of an elegant parlor. He then dragged out braces and racks and attached them to the prostrate model.
Crouching beneath the black velvet hood draped over the camera’s back, he gave direction as he peered through the viewfinder. “Move the left hand up. Good. Now tilt the head. More. Fine.”
The tramp made no noise whatsoever during this ordeal.
“An excellent tableau,” said M. Augenblick, fingering his beard. “But we must do something about the eyes. Closed eyes look most unnatural. They utterly destroy the illusion of life. I once possessed a pair of tinted spectacles, but I have no idea where they might be.”
“Perhaps we can paint his eyelids?” offered Waldo. “So they appear open?”
M. Augenblick saw the sense of this and immediately set to work. Within ten minutes, the tramp looked supernaturally awake, the glaring eyes seeming to jut from the slack face like organ stops.
The old man stepped back, nodded with satisfaction. “This will do nicely.”
After witnessing M. Augenblick repeatedly jab the paintbrush at the tramp’s unflinching eyelids, Waldo was uncomfortably reminded of the morning when he’d found his father’s corpse curled up in bed. He rose and took the man’s wrist, cold as a pickled ham.
“Beg pardon,” said Waldo, “but I think we’ve killed him.”
M. Augenblick took a pair of pincers from the table and clamped them hard on the drunkard’s earlobe. The man did not move. “I believe you are right, Waldo,” he said. “We must work quickly before mortification sets in.”
For the next several hours they exposed dozens of photographic plates of the model in various postures. He was depicted sitting, standing, lounging in bed, reading by the fire, holding a pipe. Waldo discovered the marvelous effect of changing the position of the painted pupils to show different expressions. Pleasure, complacency, curiosity, even rage.
Professionally, M. Augenblick was delighted. He’d never had a model who could be arranged into the most artistic and avant-garde poses, who could hold them as long as necessary until the shutter was released. Flash powder was not required, since the lens might stay open indefinitely.
The old photographer became increasingly bold in his use of natural light, even daring to take several photographs using a single candle as illumination. Through all of this he instructed Waldo in the various techniques, allowing him to operate the camera and even set up some of the tableau.
When they were in the darkroom, the true genius of this method rvealed itself. When M. Augenblick projected the developed plates onto the special photographic paper, the vivacity and clarity of the images stunned him.
“My boy,” he said to Waldo, “I see now that all the limits of photography I have heretofore encountered had nothing to do with the equipment or technique. It has all been the fault of the models. I believe we have invented an entirely new art form.”
Thus, Augenblick & Geier became the most fashionable studio in London for post-mortem photography. Thousands of the recently departed were likewise immortalized in various attitudes of lively repose.
During an epidemic of measles, infants became a specialty. M. Augenblick could usually convince the grieving mother to agree to his stipulation that she also be unconscious while the photograph was taken. “It heightens the effect,” he would say.
Though most of the mothers survived the sittings, M. Augenblick always required payment in advance.