Sohaila 031

High time to return from the past.... These glasses were a welcome discovery at the "Waterlooplein" flea market during the 1980's. I picked them up, saw that they were called "Wanda" and bought them because of the association.
In 1979 and 1980 I was invited by the legendary songwriter Lennaert Nijgh to play the uilleann pipes on two albums for which he would be the producer. The evening before the actual recording day, half a dozen musicians gathered in the villa of Lennaert's parents to rehearse a song for which Lennaert had written the lyrics. The song was called "Wanda van Vlieland" and it tells the tragic story of medieval Wanda who was a "colleague" of Grace O'Malley, the Sea Queen of Connaught. Lennaert explained to us that there was a problem. He had asked Flairck guitarist Erik Visser to compose the music for his lyrics but the music had not arrived. Erik was living in Galway at the time and he's sent the parcel with the music to Lennaert but it never arrived because of a postal strike in Ireland. In short, Lennaert asked us if we could compose the music. After four hours of democracy we only had a four note lick so this was no good. It was time for bed. Lennaert was in despair and I offered him to compose the music during the night. He decided to stay up for another hour and I withdrew myself in the adjoining room with his lyrics and a guitar. Working under high pressure can lead to amazing results and I wrote the music in less than an hour, keeping the melody simple because of the drones in my uilleann pipes. Lennaert had hoped for something more intricate but he accepted the music and we recorded "Wanda" the next day in the studio of singer Ben Cramer. When the LP was ready, I discovered that CBS had given the credits for the music to the guitar player who had come up with the lick of four notes. Music politics.... but it was a great experience to work with Lennaert.
After the photo shoot, I invited Sohaila for a meal in a restaurant down the road and we talked about the similarities between painting, photography, composing and playing music. After all, it's about expression. After all, Sohaila is not just a gorgeous model but also a good bass guitar player and involved in other art forms as well. But let's return to the glasses :).
The big, chunky frame is very typical for the late 1970's. Small wonder that Sohaila selected them for her photo shoot. The lenses are minus seven, about twice her own prescription. This did not keep Sohaila from delivering a delightful series of portraits. However, the tinted lenses in the "Wanda" glasses were a major problem because of the lack of anti-reflective coating. It was even worse than when we used the crazy Saphira glasses earlier on. So once more, I decided to do some heavy editing and that's how the preceding portraits came out. The present portrait serves merely as reference. It would have been a pity to leave the "Wanda" series out. Sohaila did an excellent posing job!