I took this photograph in 1977 at a wedding in Hampshire, UK. I had given Radley College, my old boarding school in the UK, a print of it for their art collection in the mid 1990s. Below is an email I received on December 21, 2023 from Kevin Mosedale:

Hello. I'm a physics don here at Radley College and I'm getting in touch for two reasons. Firstly to say how much I enjoyed the feature about your photography in the recent Old Radleian. Secondly, to say how much I enjoy having one of your wonderful photographs on the wall in my physics lab. It was originally hung near the Art Department and I often commented on it to the Head of Art, so when there was a rearrangement I asked for it to be loaned to my lab. I can't attach a photo of it, so I will have to describe it in words. I think the picture must have been taken at a wedding and what I love is that I have so many questions about all the people in the photo. When boys ask about the photo (as they often do - it has nothing to do with physics) this is what I get them to ponder. What is the woman lying on the floor (who you can easily miss at first glance) looking at? Does the man standing by her have something in his mouth? An ice cube? Are the couple in the background hiding their faces deliberately - probably not - the woman appears to be lighting a cigarette but who knows? It is the fact that so many stories could be invented about the photo that intrigues me. Anyway, I hope all this doesn't sound too fanciful, but the article in the Old Radleian did make me want to get in touch to say thank you.

Best wishes for the festive season.

Kevin

This was my reply:

Not at all fanciful!. Ponder on please and how very nice you put that picture up in your classroom and found that people wanted to know those things about it. I take photographs because I receive a message, metaphorically, not unlike a swipe across the shoulders with an iron bar. Sometimes I then say to myself “That will be a good one" and go back looking around waiting for the next swipe or have a nap. I have done my bit. Then I hope viewers will take over, like your students, and add to it according to what they see in it.

Not completely true because I have a stock of opinions and stories which I love to tell at my talks to schools, art foundations and libraries here in the USA. My comment about this picture would be something like: ”How would I feel if I had bungled this shot”? It is one of my favorites. It is a comment about the upper classes which, hanging about on the edges, I was never being quite sure what exactly I felt about them. Essentially, for me, it is photography first, scram after you have taken a picture like this in case the subjects mind. Too bad if they do I say, but I never hang about to find out. The picture says something poignant of that world that I was so uncertain of. I am an observer first and foremost, not a wedding photographer who might pass up on moments like this. I would shrink at the thought if I had wavered for a second and missed this shot.

My feeling about the woman lying on the grass is that she had had enough of standing so she lay down. She was of the nature who says to hell with what people might think. I am not at all sure, though, that the man standing beside her is of the same free thinking or has her abandoned nature. Yes, I think the couple in the background are lighting a cigarette.

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to write to me. Your letter was a great pleasure to receive.

Season's greetings to you,

Dmitri

DMITRI KASTERINE

DMITRI KASTERINE