Christmas 2024

Old age means that friends and family who were older when I was younger are all, with few exceptions,dead.

That is why it it pleasant to make and have new friends. One of them is photographer Ralph Rinke who is a busy photographer making cyanotypes, platinum prints and photographs on glass.

He came for a visit the other day and brought a lovely Christmas card made by his wife Susan.

In this scan I am bringing together the cyanotype portrait of me by Rinke (framed today), Susan’s Christmas card and a flower of the poinsettia that my friend Tim Turner brings me every year.

I no longer have the heart to put up a Christmas tree so Turner’s poinsettia and Susan’s card do just wonderfully.

And then there is this (very important) A Smile on a Sombre Day

Mary Cain - circa 1897

Indigenous Margo Kane came to my studio a few days ago for her portrait. I had first photographed her in 2008. The woman who faced me when I opened the door had a much slimmer face. Kane told me she had had some health problems.

Margo Kane 2008

 

As I was taking her photographs I felt that I had seen someone like her before somewhere else some years back. I could not remember when or where. In the middle of the night it came to me that in one of my visits to the Vancouver Archive I had seen an albumen print (19^th century process) of a woman called Mary Cain.

I decided to go back and at the front desk of the archive I asked to see the photograph. I was presented the photograph which was carefully kept in an acid-free envelope. I was granted permission to photograph it. Here it is.

In what now is an evidently long life, I can state that only two women lovingly wrapped a scarf around my neck.

The first was my Argentine girlfriend Susy who would feed me Swiss cheese sandwiches and when I was about to leave, she would place a scarf she gave me around my neck to help me fight off the terrible Buenos Aires winters.

It was for an assignment in Victoria in the late 80s that in a windstorm I lost her scarf. I was horribly depressed as the scarf was the only direct material connection to Susy.

For years Rosemary and I collected scarfs of all kinds and we even bought a lovely Pendleton one in Seattle. But it was perhaps about 5 years ago that she gave me the softest cashmere scarf. It is my absolute favourite. As I put it on, its softness is a direct connection to Rosemary’s ever so feminine softness and grace.

These colder days, when I walk Niño around the block, taking the same route that Rosemary took with Niño, I feel so very close to her.

I especially remember when Niño lingers at some garden what Rosemary told me, “Don’t yell at Niño. Be patient.”

With that scarf covering my mouth I would not even think about it.

Margo Kane - Fujiroid peel - 14 December 2024

February 2008

Without going into details, when minutes before Rosemary died, she asked, “Am I dying?” I can assert that my small family fractured.

Distractions like reading, taking photographs, scanning plants and experimenting with new methods by using my scanner help a bit.

The problem is that I no longer feel useful. With that said I have no doubt that my two cats need me (a friend in need is a friend indeed – that cliché). If I were to feel suicidal (I am not but I do think about it), I know I have to wait for Niño and Niña to die. Who would take care of them if I go first?

Two my granddaughters I am not a grandfather. I am just an old man.

But there are moments when I do feel some relief. That came when Margo Kane showed up today for her portrait. She wanted to get a new image for her Indigenous program being planned for March. I had previously photographed her in March 2008. The prospect of using the same film camera and a similar pose 16 years later excited me.

While I used my Mamiya RB-67 with the 90mm lens and 100ISO film I did take one photograph using my digital camera with the now tried and true procedure of  grossly underexposing the photograph by using a modelling light and my Fuji X-E3 set at 200ISO, 1/30 of a second and at the strange f-stop f-7.1.The result is an absolute black rectangle that I then treat with my 20-year-old Photoshop 8. The result has an odd colour (that I like) and digital noise that resembles that of fast film grain.

For the other two pictures I took, I used a Polaroid back for my Mamiya and I shot it with Fuji 100IS) instant film.

In that last century, after peeling the Polaroids we would throw the peels away. Alas that was a mistake we only corrected this century with a scanner! The process is to immediately place the peel on the scanner (if you wait the image fades) and rub it well onto the glass. Once scanned, I reverse it in Photoshop (or not).

So thank you Margo for making my day and giving me the idea that I may still be useful.

Judy Brown - Mexico City 1962 - Rosemary Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - Mexico City 1968

Today, 13 Friday 2024, was a pleasant day as I celebrated with Alexandra, Hilary’s birthday which is tomorrow. We went to our fave Italian Restaurant, La Piazza Dario, at the Italian Cultural Centre.

As I looked at the candle on our table I immediately had my idea for today’s blog. It involved two women in my life whom I photographed with just the light of a candle.

The first one was really my first girlfriend. I was 20 and I met her at Mexico City College in Mexico City. Her name was Judy Brown. Even though I was a nerd (before the word had been invented) I remember being daring enough to ask her to take her to Veracruz to meet my mother. On the bus she was reluctant for me to put my head on her lap in our bus. She confessed that she had a boyfriend called Allan in Los Angeles. Her claim to fame was that her father played tennis with Charles Schulz who created Peanuts.

She went back to LA and I never heard from her again. All I have are photographs that I took using an extremely fast film called Agfa Isopan Record with my Asahi Pentax S-3 and a 85mm f-1.8 Komura lens.

In early 1968, after I had married my Rosemary on8 February, I took some photographs of her in the nude. In the contact sheet I spotted some where I had used a candle. The film was some sort of very fast Kodak film.

And that is how the last became my real first.