Niña above and Niño below

Anniversaries are terrible when they involve the death of a loved one.

After a bit more than a month, when I met my Rosemary, we were married on February 8 1968 in Coyoacán, Mexico. Rosemary died on December 9, 2020. Those dates have been in my soul and it would have been impossible for me to forget them and not to write about them today.

While “nunca más” is a translation of nevermore, the use of that word by Edgar Alan Poe makes the word in English that much more damning for me. I live in a jar full of memories that can never be experienced in reality again. Going up and down the stairs of my Kits house and seeing all those family photographs and more in my bedroom, living room and dining room is an exquisite but sad experience.

I have no idea how my daughters are remembering today. I look at Niño and Niña, two cats Rosemary and I rescued from the SPCA 7 years ago, and I realize that she loved and petted both of them when they were on our bed with us. They constantly remind me of her absent presence.

While I have written about this incident before, I cannot but repeat it. We were in the living room waiting for the funeral people to show up. Rosemary was upstairs on our bed. I thought, “Alex you are a photographer. You have to take that photograph.” I went up and there was my dead wife with Niña asleep on her chest. I took that photograph. Nobody in my family will ever see it. That photograph will be in my memory until oblivion takes it away.

Pedro Meyer - December 1, 2025

A Book End In Mexico City

When I told my journalist friend Maurice Bridge of the project that was going to take me to Mexico City on the first of December he told me, “Alex this will make a good bookend for your career.” I laughed and replied, “This means I can return from Mexico City and die.” He laughed, too. It immediately occurred to me that there is no expression in Spanish for that bookend.

Since I returned at 4:30 in the morning on December 6 I have been in a combination of shell shock about the enormity of Mexico City now and at the same time I have felt lackadaisical about doing anything except lying on my bed with my cats Niño and Niña.

 To my horror I forgot to take out the 100 ISO film from my bag when I arrived at the Mexico City airport. I was there to photograph 91 year-old Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer who is almost blind (became so 2 years ago). He is able to discern movement and colours. Meyer told me not to worry about the film. He was right. I took four exposures with my film camera and some with my Fuji X-E3. About the film camera I will write below.

In 1962 I was living in Mexico City and told myself that I could not be a photographer with only my 1958 purchased in Austin, Texas (B&H NY mail) an East German , Dresden made Pentacon-F SLR. I went to Foto Rudiger on Avenida Venustiano Carranza and found a used black Asahi Pentax S-3 with a 55mm F-2 lens. I decided this was the camera that I would use to take portraits (with a portable studio lighting system that would include a softbox). All my cameras are operational thanks to the fact that Horst Wenzel would repair them here in Vancouver. A couple of weeks before he died last year the shutter button of the Pentax fell out. He repaired it.

I have written before in many of my blogs how my cameras represent to me versions of King Arthur’s Sword Excalibur. With the Pentax I knew I could do no wrong.

A Sword Excalibur and a Dog 

Meyer warned me that he would take my photograph. He used a digital (very expensive) Leica. He sent me a portrait via WhatsApp. My niece Mari Teli, (who drove me around in Mexico City and in her hometown of Cuernavaca), told me that the trees behind me were not there. I asked Meyer. His answer was, “Those trees are based on 17 million Canadian trees.” You see, and this is important, this 91 year-old photographer used Artificial Intelligence.

Photograph by Pedro Meyer - De3cember 1, 2025

Most of my contemporaries in Vancouver really no longer take photographs. For me Meyer is an inspiration to keep going at it. And if I manage to be 91 someday I hope I have his enthusiasm.

Steve Sanford - Dec 5, 2025 - Mexico City

Nueva Rosita - Steve Frazier Sanford
 

In my recent trip to Mexico City I met up with a man I had last seen in 1957 when both of us were 15. Because we did not communicate until we met (a brief WhatsApp before to arrange our meeting) it seemed like all those years (68) had not happened. Paradoxically we both felt that we had seen each other seconds before in 1957.

I believe that this century has a few advantages over the last one. One big one is to locate people (Google) and then to communicate with them (Messenger, WhatsApp).

In 1957 my mother was teaching high school (8^th grade, 7^th and 6^th) in a one room schoolhouse in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila in northern Mexico. She was teaching there because her students were the children of the engineers, etc, of American Smelting and Refining Company.

The 8^th grade class was made up by 6 boys. I was one of them and of course my mother was our teacher.

Steve Frazier- far right - 1957, Nueva Rosita, Coahuila. Mexico

A few weeks ago I looked for those 5 boys. I already knew that 4 of them were gone. Steve Frazier has a sister, Cornelia Muzquiz who lives in Eagle Pass. Texas. I connected with her through Messenger and she gave me the contacts for her brother who now used his mother’s maiden name of Sanford.

Alex on left, Steve on far right

We spent several hours in Mexico City using the word buddy lots. Steve talks perfect Spanish and his English is full-Texan.

Of the portrait that I took of him I can only say I lucked out.

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 30 November 2025

 

Today is what I would call a travel limbo.  I am leaving at 7 in the morning tomorrow for Mexico City (CDMX). This means that I will not get a good night’s sleep. Without my Rosemary to help me pack and organize the trip I lie in bed trying to think what I may have forgotten to put in my suitcase.

My two daughters are going to come for late lunch as well as my nephew Tom Tom (not a mistake as he is known for that double name) Wolf who is coming from San francisco to be one of the speakers for The Prosper Symposium on Drug Prevention tomorrow. Tom Tom travels all over the world, including Washington DC, to give advice that he learned when he was a terrible alchoholic and drug addict. He does point out to me (and he should know) that Vancouver has the worst fentanyl problem in North America.

At around 4 I will have the sad duty of taking Niño and Niña to the Feline Hilton on West Boulevard in Kerrisdale. Because I will be returning on a Saturday late that will mean that I will spend tonight and my coming back Saturday without their cuddly company.

I do not have an Uber application so I will call my usual Black Top cabs to pick me up to take me to the airport.

I have been emptying all my garbage. Tomorrow will be the pick up. The house is clean. What have I possibly missed?

Not missed was looking for some sort of open rose bud with my best rose at this late time in fall called Rosa ‘Shropshire Lad’.  I wa rewarded and as usual this rose has lovely new red leaves.

 I will bid my two cats goodbye but somehow this rose has done the same and perhaps has even wished me a safe journey and a good time.

Pedro Meyer

A week ago I told my journalist friend Maurice Bridge of my project that will take me to Mexico City in the beginning of December. He said, “Alex this will be a good bookend for your career.”  I immediately answered back with a grin, “This means I can return to Vancouver and die!” He laughed.

Because I speak English and Spanish I often think of these expressions and how the concept of a bookend does not exist in Spanish. It is impossible to say quickly without an explanation in Spanish the translation of a “show and tell”.

Why am I going to Mexico?

Just because my Rosemary died five years ago does not mean that I have to wait to die. I actively pursue when possible both my analog and digital photography. I have amassed over 5000 plant scans and I have now written 6730 blogs.

I am going to Mexico to photograph a well-known Mexican photographer, Pedro Meyer, who is 90 and has been blind for two years. It was about 15 years ago that while reading the on-line Washington Post I noticed a link called ZoneZero. To my surprise it was an astounding and advanced for the age digital photographic web page. I connected with the man in charge, Pedro Meyer and we became friends. I wrote an essay which is still up about asymmetry. It involves my photography of a woman who was born minus and arm and with a leg that was longer than the other. The essay is both in Spanish and in English.

 My Essay in ZoneZero

About two weeks ago I wondered what may have happened to Meyer. In Google I found that he has a very strong presence and that he even publishes books and has conferences. Using that wonderful 21st century device called WhatsApp I had a long chat. His marbles are intact. When I write to him he has an assistant called Ximena who reads what I send him. I asked Meyer what he would do if our tables were turned. He told me he would come to Vancouver to photograph me. I asked him if I should photograph him looking at me with eyes open, with eyes closed or in profile. He told me to do all three and advised me that he was going to take my portrait. He does discern a bit of light, but no more.

In 1962 when I was living in Mexico City I told myself that I could not be a photographer with only one camera, an early single lens reflex, an East German made in Dresden Pentacon-F that I had purchased in 1958 in Austin, Texas via NY. I went to a German-named store, Foto Lipkau and found that all they sold were expensive Leicas. I then visited a store, not far; on Avenida Venustiano Carranza called Foto Rudiger and spotted an all-black used Asahi Pentax S-3. It was the right choice as its 55mm F-2 lens was compatible with the screw mount of my Pentacon-F.

 I think it is appropriate that I photograph Meyer with this camera and with 100ISO b+w film. Of course I will take my digital Fuji X-E3 (and just in case the Fuji X-E1). With me in my luggage will be my portable Metz studio light (110-220) and a small softbox. I will limit myself to using the 55mm Pentax lens. I wonder how Meyer will shoot me and I am looking forward to the experience.

I have a niece, who lives in Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, who will pick me up at the airport and drive me to the lovely Coyoacán neighbourhood. There is a special significance to me there as on 8 November 1968, at a judge’s office in the main square I married my Rosemary Elizabeth Healey.

Just because I am 83 does not mean that I have to quit dreaming of new projects.

While I smiled at the idea of this becoming a bookend to my career I plan to keep at it while my good health persists.