News & Notes
News & Notes
1940s
Bob Ely (1944) I suppose the main thing happened on the 26 October 2020 when I reached the age of 90! Because of Covid I had to celebrate, like Caesar in All Gaul, in three parts! We were at home, in restaurants and elsewhere to see friends and family in small, lockdown permitted groups. One highlight was all the Residents of Penstones Court where I live, singing Happy Birthday while cake arrived for the party. It was iced like a cricket field, with the scoreboard showing 90 Not Out and had been ordered by my carer, June. Covid has dealt kindly, so far, with me and my family having all escaped infection, but we have been very cautious. Also my youngest daughter, who was planning to come over with her husband for the summer, is still stuck in Australia. However the ever changing regulations have begun to irritate. I’ve written some doggerel to cover this, to the tune of John Brown’s Body. Glory, glory Hallelujah. Glory how they try to fool yer. Everyday they change the rule, yeah? But lockdown marches on!
I’ve continued with the third volume of my autobiography entitled Dignity and Impudence Revisited OR Did I tell you the one About ……..? as I’m infamous for my anecdotes! For the last year I’ve been dealing with my editor on weekly phone calls but at last we have had a daylong meeting in person. It is so much simpler and more effective! Dmitri Kasterine (1945) Have moved to Fenimore Cooper country (described by him as picturesque and romantic) in Central New York, where we plan a Photography Gallery which will be open at regular times throughout the year. I am giving talks at libraries and clubs around the state about my sixty years as a photographer, and my plans for another book about the residents of Central New York State. Tennis back after a rest of 18 months because of Covid. Have published a book of my photographs with extended captions of information and chat about the pictures (examples pictured below). You can see it on my website: www.kasterine.com
There is, however, a serious omission in the book, that of the influence of my friend Jeffrey (Jake) Sharpe (1945), also of Cocks’ Social. His father gave him a Rolleicord camera for his fifteen or sixteenth birthday. It was the year that General Lattre de Tasigny inspected the Corp and Jake, as soon as we were dismissed by the General, ran to the door in Covered Passage that leads to the library and retrieved his Rolliecord that he had hidden there. With the camera securely round his neck he marched up to the General, saluted him, and, in French, asked if he could photograph him. The general, returned his salute and replied that he would be delighted to have his picture taken. You don’t learn that kind of courage and enterprise at photography school, and not many people actually see an example of it given by somebody so young as Jake. I shall never forget it, and I tell the story whenever somebody asks who my influences were.
Examples of Dmitri Kasterine’s work. Left: Samuel Beckett, 1965 Right: Young woman wearing a Playboy belt in Newburgh, NY, 2004 the old radleian 2021
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