Independent Scholar Updated 4y
This is a mystery of happiness and loss.[1]
In 2015, William Fagan, an Irish photographer, bought a 1935 Leica camera with a roll of undeveloped film inside.[2]
When he developed the film 5 years later, in 2020, he discovered 22 images of (perhaps) a honeymoon through Switzerland and Italy.
You have already seen the bride.
Her wedding ring is on her right hand, European style. She immortalized him like this:
They left snowy Bavaria for their road-trip in a BMW-315 that had been registered 1948 in post-war Munich, in the American occupation zone.[3]
But by the time they reached Lake Como, Italy, it was spring—
—and no later than 1951, because this steamer was taken out of service the following year.
It was so beautiful…
and so was she.
But afterwards, the camera lay idle—unopened—never used again—the lovers’ story forever closed—
—and their identities lost.
Finale.
That is what I wrote on the 14th December 2020.
It occurred to me that the camera might simply have been lost.
And that the person who found it—perhaps in rural Italy, in 1950, when things were still chaotic after World War 2—kept it, in case the couple returned. But they never did, and the camera was put away until grandchildren were clearing out old trunks, 5 years ago.
It is easy to lose things. It is easy and painful to lose precious things.
“They probably had their first row about who was to blame for losing the Leica. It’s not like losing an Instamatic. Could have ruined the whole trip.”
It probably did.
We have all lived through love-trips that went pear-shaped.
This is a story of happiness and loss.
Update, 22nd December 2020.
Concerning the car, the landscapes, and the time (1950–1951), here are the latest findings from the public:
Footnotes
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