“To whom do we now pay homage?”

A few months ago I visited a store nearby advertising a cleaning service for digital cameras. On the way inside I noticed bulletins publicizing seminars and field trips related to photography.  Lenses and cameras in glass cases lined the shop; and I saw leaning  against one display the shopkeeper, a man of middle age, short and slightly built. He turned to me as I approached and I received a jolt — one of the few times I have encountered a doppelganger — not mine, but Edward Weston’s.  The resemblance shocked me. I said, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Edward Weston? You could be his identical twin.”

The muscles in the proprietor’s face went slack, then a frown covered his face. He said, “Who is Edward Weston?”

[Edward Weston is legendary 20th century photographer; together with a few other practitioners, he laid the foundations of modern photography, an innovator in both subject matter and technique.]

That threw me off balance and I hesitated, then my mouth fell open involuntarily and my jaw dropped. I did not speak at first for fear of becoming sarcastic. I remember discussing his services briefly and politely with the shop owner, cost and such without any chit-chat. Then I left.

On the way home I had the following thoughts:  “So to whom do we now pay homage? It is no longer ancestors — that served in ages past, but seems as gone today as the continent of Mu.”

In honor of Edward’s son Brett Weston and his Burnt Wharf.