The Witch Of Provincetown - 1962

That wasn't her name but that's what we called her. Every day you'd see her walking up and down Commercial Street carrying that big straw purse. She looks to be at least late sixties with her jowels and throat beginning to sag a bit and her slightly hunched over posture. She ambled along with a slow shuffle. She had a good head of thick hair but the reddish auburn color no doubt came out of a bottle.

She was always the properly dressed lady. She wore short heels, the seams in her nylons were always perfectly straight, the skirt covered her knees by a few inches, and you never saw her without hat and gloves. She did wear a bit too much make-up though. Eye liner and eye shadow had yet to become fashionable but she was made up straight out of a nineteen thirties movie. Plucked and arched eyebrows, rouge on the cheeks of her powdered face, and bright red lipstick.

She never seemed to talk with anyone. She just went about her business, doing a bit of shopping before heading back to wherever it was that she lived. I never did find out where that was, but then I didn't much care anyway. Nor did I know if she was widowed, divorced, an old maid or a lesbian. Over the course of the summer I shot a few pictures of her and liked this the best.

I was shooting Kodak Plus-X in a Canon II-S rangefinder with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens.