The studio by the square now keeps a saucer of tiny sunglasses beside the camera. Before each portrait, the photographer slides a pair onto the flash and waits for it to settle, as if a guest were finding its seat.
We asked at the kiosk. A woman with a packet of prints said the morning sitting had felt kinder. "It used to blink like noon," she told us. "Now it only winks, and the geranium on the sill keeps its leaves open." A note in the studio book of thanks claimed the plant had stopped folding itself in half and even leaned toward the lens.
By evening the same woman came back for a second sitting. She said the flash had nodded first, the flower had stayed wide, and the portrait came out looking as if everyone in the room, including the window box, had agreed to be seen.