After almost 70 years of traveling, I marvel at the fact that travel forces one to get organized.

As a freelance photographer in Vancouver the first thing in my mind before going on an assignment was the fact that any kind of failure meant elimination from the roster of useable photographers in the offices of art directors.

This meant that I always took two of everything, just in case. I remember that once in Calgary for a magazine assignment, the body of my Mamiya RB failed. I did not despair and had a taxi go to a hock shop to pick up a used one which I purchased on the phone with a credit card.

In photography some of us swore by Patterson’s Law of Photography in which an unknown Patterson stipulated that Mr. Murphy of Murphy’s Law was indeed an optimist.

Going to Buenos Aires in a few days means that I have to think of spare batteries for my two digital cameras, brand new storage cards that I have previously formatted, a charger for those batteries, and because I am taking a very good portable studio light, spare cables, modeling light bulbs and an extra  flash tube.

All that would be for naught if I didn’t also think of the little device that sits on my camera and connects via a wire to the studio light. Should the battery in it fail there would be no way of firing the flash. Changing the spare battery implies using a very small Phillips (a Canadian probably related to Patterson) screwdriver. And so it goes.

The reason for my concern is that this man (me) does not usually shootweddings but I am in a way shooting one. My niece Milagros (complete first name María de los Milagros) O’Reilly is getting married in a sumptuous church wedding and after the ceremony the reception will be at the ultra-neo-baroque Círculo Militar opposite la Plaza San Martín. When Argentine generals had command of the nation (most of the 20^th century) they may have plotted their coups and revolutions over good wine surrounded by luxury. Now the generals are no longer an important part of governing Argentina so the hard-pressed milicos (as Argentines say as a most negative epithet of them) must resort to renting out the place.

I remember when I was a conscript in the Argentine Navy that there was a scandal courtesy of the visiting Prince Phillip who cornered some generals and asked them, "When are you chaps going to have the next coup?"

I plan to stay out of the way of the official photographer and will look for a nice corner to take my shots of the couple and then with Mili’s four sisters and then with Mili’s four sisters and brother and who knows what else I will be asked to shoot.

My Rosemary inherited (I don’t quite understand exactly how) my grandmother’s talent for compact packing. She will pack and the morning of our flight out of Vancouver I will take Niño and Niña to the Kerrisdale Feline Hilton, While this breaks Rosemary’s heart she knows that they take care of them well even though they do not get breakfast in bed.

In my years as a photographer I have had the good fortune of meeting many people (quite a few were women) who inspired me to take photographs and to push the limits of what previously had been a safe photographic style. Some of these people were very good magazine designers/art directors who refused to pigeon-hole me into a type.

Some of the best memories I have (with negatives and slides to prove that they were real) were of actors, directors, politicians, rock musicians, musicians, cops and hoods. But because I am an avid heterosexual photographer I can sometimes go up to a striking woman and say, “I would like to photograph you.”

Fortunately I am not a plumber as I could not approach such a woman and say, “I would like to show you my plumbing jobs.”

Out of the blue I was contacted by a beautiful woman about to be 40 who feels she needs to record how she looks now.

As a 30, 40 and 50 year old I used to get many requests for such endeavours. At age 77 the only phone calls I receive demand I contact the Canadian Revenue Service at my peril.

When Courtenay did eventually show up at my door I was overwhelmed by unusual beauty, presence and intelligence.

It is the latter that will be the most important factor in what I hope will be an ongoing collaboration.

The photograph seen here, a Fuji Instant Print is the first photograph I took of Courtenay.

In the 80s on 4th Avenue Vancouver had an amazing bookstore, Mystery Merchant, that catered to whodunit people.

I had the pleasure of taking portraits of many mystery and detective novelists from abroad. One of the most intriguing one of them all was a quiet spoken man whose gentle elegance somehow is reflected in all his writing. All of us including my friend Les Wiseman, who were into murder mysteries and police whodunits, read Walter Mosley. In those 80s (he has written all kinds of stuff since) his star protagonist, was hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

With time my memory of the man has faded and all I have are 7 6x7cm b+w negatives. My camera’s rolls gave me 10 exposures but it seems I stopped at number 7.

Today, Saturday, as in all Saturdays we get the Sunday NY Times hard copy delivered to our door around 7:45 in the evening. In the first section that I always read (most of the time inside a hot bath) was a killer but sensitive essay by Mosley. I do not think that the copyright cops of the NY Times will come after me for reproducing it here.

Why I Quit the Writers’ Room -The worst thing you can do to citizens of a democracy is silence them.

Hosta tardiflora 6 September 2019

At last count there were at least 4000 hosta cultivars. A species is a term used to denote plants that are found in the wild that have not had human interference (tough!). Cultivars or sports are plants that change for no apparent reason and may look different. They could have larger or smaller flowers. They could have variegated leaves. Most plants grow in particular zones. But some plants can adapt to cold weather or hotter weather or survive and then even thrive in drought.

Hostas are considered by some of us enthusiasts as the white mice of the plant kingdom. You may have a nursery with 100 hostas of a particular variety. Suddenly in their midst you spot one that is different (a lot or only in detail). It would be impossible to have all those “selections” in one garden. Nursery people will select that different plant (it could even be a rose) and then propagate it by division or by cloning.

One thing hostas are pretty good at is in having a pattern as to when they bloom. Most do so in June, July. The sometimes called August Lilly  is a species hosta, Hosta plantaginea which flowers in August. It is the only hosta (plus its sports) to have white fragrant flowers.

An English plantsman, Eric Smith sometime in the early 70s noticed that a species hosta Hosta 

tardiflora, which blooms in early September was in bloom at the same time as blue leaved Hosta sieboldiana “Elegans”. He quickly played like a bee and pollinated the two. The result was a slew of hostas now called the Tardianas. They have the blue colour of the sieboldiana but instead of having large rounded leaves they are long and narrow (lanceolate is the correct term) leaves.The two most famous are Hosta 'Halcyon' and Hosta 'June'.

Just as it is supposed to be doing my Hosta tardiflora is in bloom today.

From my car radio CBC Radio 1 I have found out that Gloria Macarenko is in Ottawa today receiving her Order of Canada.

I have been hit by a stream of consciousness of fond memories as I have had the good fortune of having photographed her since the late 80s. My first photos were for CBC bus shelter ads. Since then I have had many studio sessions with her.

There is only one other woman who can compare with her for presence (be it TV or radio), intelligence and a supreme radio voice. That other woman, Carole Taylor I first photographed at the CBC.

For me, a person of mixed ancestry, the CBC helped me in many ways to become a Canadian and, most important, a profitable one. In 1975 when I arrived with my family from Mexico, I found out the correct pronunciation for Newfoundland. Radio Canada gave me my first good paying job and I photographed many variety shows as a stills man.

My mother used to say in Spanish (something that Macarenko will understand as she speaks it well), “Hay poca gente fina y educada como nosotros.” It has all to do with the fact that in Spanish educación is more than education, it also means well mannered.

For years every time I photographed Arthur Erickson I used to tell myself that he would have been first on any list as a guest for a reception for the Queen of England. By now you would certainly know that second on that list would be our gracious CBC luminary, Gloria Macarenko.

In my thick file of photographs of her I am hard-pressed to find the ultimate one. There are far too many ultimate ones.

One of my pleasures is to go to the Bodega on Main and run into her where we can converse in Spanish with manager Héctor Medina.

A special memory for me was an invitation by former cameraman Michael Varga to show up, with my then 13 years old granddaughter, at a taping of a Macarenko news program. Watching her in what seemed to be an effortless endeavour makes me believe that she is one of a kind.

Had this woman, who first emerged as talented in Prince Rupert, not have been noticed, I can only surmise that she could have also been a psychiatrist. On her couch I would have revealed all with no compunction.  And of course that is why nobody can match her at an interview.

Her Order of Canada is well-deserved.

¡Te felicito!