A portrait of our son, Lemon, at eight days old. The photo below him is of Citrus when she was seven days old.
About a month ago my daughter looked at me and asked point-blank “Why did you name me after an orange?”
I blame my father for our children’s names. He worked for 23 years at UC Berkeley’s Agricultural Publications as a graphic designer. When I was a child he would bring home beautiful photos and illustrations of California’s agricultural products and the pests that eat them. I remember one in particular about citrus fruits in various stages of being eaten by fly larvae.
Citrus, and now her brother, are named after hybrid fruits that are half-mandarin oranges. They are half Chinese. And their names have other meanings and tenuous connections to California as well.
We have no pests in our family.
The photo of Lemon was taken with a Nikon D90, SB-600 flash and 35 lemons. Additional lemons, primarily along the perimeter, were added digitally. I almost like the uncropped and unfinished version better.
The photo of Citrus was taken five years ago with a Sony Cybershot 4.0 megapixel camera and 21 clementines with more added digitally as well. At that time I had never heard of Anne Geddes but just thought fruit would make a nice background.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
All these years and I never knew that about the ML!
Tell Citrus she could have been named Apple…
I guess we’ll be having a new picture on my kitchen wall!
Finally I learn the whole story! Which makes the two names even nicer. And I love the photo of Lemon and the lemons–I remember back when I saw the Citrus photo and thought how beautiful it was. [Tell Citrus that the meaning of her name is much much nicer than mine: "From the gray fort."]
Leslie