BUNCHING “DAFFIES.”
The flowers are picked while the buds are still unopened; during the evening one may see the family seated around the fire, each one dipping the flower stalks in a saucepan of hot water; they are then laid aside until the morning, when they are rapidly and neatly bunched for sale. Flowers which are forced open in this manner do not, of course, last nearly so long as those which open naturally; but this does not disturb the gypsy, who is usually too intently concerned with the bread-and-jam aspect of the matter to be worried by such a trifle.
I was once photographing some gypsy fellows who were occupied in bunching “daffies,” as they term them, when something went wrong with the mechanism of my camera which necessitated the taking out of all the plates for the removal of the obstruction. Here was a predicament; I was nearly seven miles from home with no means of proceeding with my work unless I could take all the plates from my camera, correct it, and replace them in order. I decided therefore to risk doing it if by any method whatever a dark “room” could be improvised, so, kneeling upon the ground with my camera, the gypsy folk piled around and over me, sacks, tent blankets, hay, daffodil bags and what not, while my companion contributed a coat to supplement my own, then darkness seemed complete and with misgivings I did what my sense of touch indicated as being needed and recharged the camera,—but oh, the stuffiness and the heat of my dark tent, to think of it even now gives me a sensation of being suffocated. My companion took toll for the use of his coat by snapshotting me while in the “dark room”; perhaps the picture opposite may be more correctly described as the dark room while I was in it.
On another occasion I was changing plates at night in absolute darkness in a caravan; a gypsy boy of about ten years of age was present during the operation, and doubtless he thought it altogether a strange business, for now and again he would say: “Oh, mush, ain’t it funny?” I was very much afraid his curiosity would prompt him to strike a match, to see what was actually going on; but, fortunately, he was susceptible to my appeals to him to sit quite still; nevertheless, I felt much relieved when I had my exposed plates safely packed and the camera refilled, for I had that day exposed plates on some of my choicest subjects. It will be evident to the photographically inclined, that the conditions under which one practises the art while living as a Romanichal among Romanies, are not always ideal; even the best of shutters objects at times to roughing it, being set fast when it should move, or becoming “unstuck” when it should be rigid; but this kind of thing imparts additional variety to a changeful life, although in the event of one being compelled to stay at home doing repairs during the greater part of the best photographic day experienced, one’s good or bad points are likely to be developed accordingly as the soul is possessed in patience or the work in hand has an obbligato of expletives.
THE “DARK ROOM.”
Most of the gypsies are very keen critics of photographs of themselves or their acquaintances, and when portraits to their satisfaction are produced they are extremely anxious to secure at least one copy “to put up in the van.” In such cases I have found that the photographs are carefully treated, and may be seen year after year; even tent-dwellers, who, in the nature of things, have great difficulty in keeping pictures of any kind in fair condition, will produce from somewhere a grubby envelope or paper parcel, and exhibit with unmistakable interest its contents, consisting of photographs of themselves and their tents, which they have somehow managed to preserve in decent condition, and they will give particulars as to how, when, where and why each was taken, the minutest details of which have been preserved by their wonderful memory.