Enduring Beauty.
By Carl Kuntze
2 April 2008
I met Sonia in an art class in 1964 when she was 22. I was trying to shift from news photography, and needed a model. She was quite striking, and while she was more interested in art than modeling, she consented to pose for me. Her husband was a graduate student in Stanford, and after sizing me up, decided the relationship was unthreatening. Because she was extremely photogenic, I was inspired, and shot roll after roll, even if I had not yet figured out what I'd do with the photographs. I experimented with lighting and various techniques as well as esoteric chemicals. Her husband had to transfer to a university in the east, ending our association. For a while we lost touch.
But I ran into her from time to time, noting she has retained her beauty. She did not feel confident enough to immerse herself in art, acquiring training as a realtor, in which she was quite successful. But still paints and sculpts as a hobby. Her first marraige failed, and she married for a second time, also to an academic. Now semi-retired, having reached the traditional age
for being put out to pasture, she devotes more time to art, in which she is exceptionally good.
I still like photographing her, and even her current husband, who seems an anachronism, he resembles old pictures of early American immigrants.
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