FRANCES BAER

The work of Life Magazine photographers is a record of the history of American photojournalism as well as the changing face of the world in the last half of the 20th Century. JON BRENNEIS, LOOMIS DEAN, WAYNE MILLER, and JOE MUNROE were among the first wave of LIFE photographers.

Back when we were all young in the Berkeley Hills, Morley Baer and I drove convertibles. We would frequently be coming down the hill in tandem in the predawn as we set out to be somewhere significant at dawnlight. Some days he was alone with his big tripod sticking up in the back seat, and some days he would be with his wife Frances. Those were the days when he would be shooting “shelter stuff” and Fran would be with him to see to it that the decorative cushions were in the right place on the sofa. Her decorator’s eye was credited with his success in those places.

Years passed and Morley and Fran were living at Garapata on the Big Sur coast on a rocky crag above the waves. My wife, Aida, and I were returning from Hollywood and foolishly took Highway 1, which promptly became wet and drizzly. A phone call to Garapata established that the Baers were home, and we turned off and bumped our way through the drizzle to the stone sanctuary where there were Baers. We had prepared for the visit with a fresh bottle of Irish whiskey, and when we left, it was with a promise that we would return on a cold night and finish the bottle. A year later we returned to find Old Bushmill sitting out on the kitchen table, still half full. So here’s to Frances Baer, a woman of taste and distinction, a woman you could trust with your whiskey.

Jon Brenneis