Alexandra Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward  1989

Back in December a friend asked me what it was, that as the photographer that I am, that I would hang in my home’s walls.

I answered here that they are mostly family portraits.

I forgot about one photograph that is hanging in my bathroom. It has been properly framed so as not to be affected by the moisture that it is subject to.

In 1989 I was working on a project for a gallery show that involved 12 or more women in tubs. One weekend my Rosemary asked me, “What floozy is coming to pose for you tomorrow?” I answered, “Someone you know, our daughter Alexandra. She asked to be part of the project.” Since she was 21, I had another subject of mine, about her age, come so that I would make it a bit more comfortable for all.

I am so glad that I am not a plumber but a photographer. What would my friend Tiffany ask a plumber as to what he/she would have on their home walls? 

The peculiar look of the image here is that is a scanned Kodak Kodalith b+w positive mounted on silver card. It looks nice on a wall but the direct light of the scanner affects a bit the lovely effect that resembles an old Daguerreotype.

Joan Didion has been in my mind in the last few weeks not only because of her death last December 23 but also because she wrote, (as I best recall), "I write because I want to know what I am thinking."

In my solitude with two cats, writing my daily blog, gives me solace, and, thanks to Didion, a purpose.

Now I would wish for someone to create an equivalent statement as to why an old photographer should keep snapping photographs.

The closest I can get to that is related to my mentor Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. telling us in our religion class sometime in 1959 at St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas why we came into this world. Without mentioning God he said to us that our purpose in life was to find out what we did best and to do it. He added that the tragedy would be to not proceed.”

This means that even if I no longer get photographic assignments (and I don’t) from magazines, newspapers, ad agencies, law firms, etc I must keep on pressing that shutter while I can physically do the pressing.

On Wednesday I had a friend pose for me in my living room studio (I moved it from my small garage studio because of Covid concerns as my living room has more breathing space). Because I shoot a lot less, I tripped over flash cords, light stands and had my Fuji X-E3 camera outright prove my suspicion that inanimate objects have free will. It refused to obey my instructions and I hand to find roundabout methods to do what I wanted. Luckily camera failure brings many surprises and this time there were many good ones. My subject, C was patient and did not react much to unenthusiasm. I believe I may have taken some of my best photographs in many months.

What is interesting is that the session happened when I sent C some scans of a recent National Geographic History Magazine (I am subscribed to it) article on Nefertiti. It seems that C had once dressed herself as Akhenaton’s wife. We were both intrigued by sculptures of her showing a very close to the skin, semi-transparent cotton material that had an interesting pattern of lines.

Mati Laansoo left - Gary Marchant - right - Illustration Marv Newland

It is a paradox that this photographer does not have a single photograph of this writer friend who had an unusual sense of humour. But I have various communications from him. His editor, and long time friend, former editor of the stellar Vancouver Magazine has sent me one of his better known articles about Laansoo's grandfather Gerry called The Last Estonian which I will place below.

There are many apocryphal stories (they may hide some truths) about Laansoo. One was that he slept with a .45 under his pillow. Another, too  far-fetched to believe, is that when he returned from a war-torn Beirut where he was a CBC sound man, the sound equipment coming to Canada may have included a rocket launcher.

My story about Laansoo involves my trip to London years ago with my Rosemary and two daughters Alexandra and Hilary. Laansoo picked me up at our hotel in the morning and took me to underground bars that in those days served alcohol. By the afternoon I was tipsy. In the evening Rosemary and I got into Laansoo’s Mini with his wife Joanne on route to the Old Vic Theatre to see Deborah Kerr in the Corn is Green. Being in a small car close to the ground that was driven by a man with lots of liquor was scary. I was disappointed by a Deborah Kerr who acted like the grandmother she surely was and I saw no glimpses of her with Burt Lancaster on a Hawaii beach. 

Once we were back in the hotel I was coaxed into the bar and told that because I had the keys to our hotel room the bar could not close. At around 1 in the morning Laansoo told me he wanted to meet my daughters. I woke them up and they met the man.

Another story, that I find unbelievable, is that one day I received a call from him and he asked, “Do you think that Carolanne Rule at Western Living would want a story on croquet?” I was doubtful, but eventually dumfounded when Rule said, “Do it.” And so Laansoo and I worked on a lovely piece on croquet which I photographed with Kodak b+w Infrared Film.

Malcolm Parry & Mati Laansoo's Vancouver Magazine

In its prime in the late 70s and 80s and a bit of the 90s when Vancouver Magazine was the best magazine of our city, articles that appeared in it were widely read. There were a couple of those articles that generated next-morning hate mail that rivaled the instant emails and social media comments that were yet to come. 

One of them was a cover article that featured Santa Claus in Hawaii posing with lovely women in bikinis. The other was one of Laansoo's columns Over There which he wrote from abroad (mostly from London). He and his friend, Gary Marchant (who wrote the Vancouver Magazine travel column Faraway Places), had eaten canine meat at a Filipino restaurant. Parry told them to make sure they brought the receipt. 

The Last Estonian

 

In Beirut

In France - Photograph Malcolm Parry

And one more! Alex: Here's one from 1975 showing James Labonte (then Jim Labounty). me, Mati. Ron Stern, Bill Featherston and Robin Arkell.

Laansoo wrote why he liked Bach here

And he illustrated it with this:

 Other Laansoo gems

Illustration Carl  Chaplin (in relation to postacard below)

Quo Vadis Opus Dei - Alsatian Moo

The origin of the idiom 'time on your hands' isn't known; what scholars do know, though, is that this saying is an old one. The earliest printed example available is from Charles Lamb's 1833 Last Essay of Elia: “It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever manage.

Ginger

“La soledad me pesa. La compañía también.”

“Solitude weighs on me. Company does too.”

Jorge Luís Borges

With all the time in my hands, living alone with two cats and as a magazine photographer of yore being now obsolete, redundant, retired & inconsequential, I do a lot of thinking. Plenty of it happens at night and this prevents me from getting a good night sleep.

I sort of speak two languages (Argentine Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Canadian English and Texan English with a smattering of Tagalog). This means that I am constantly shifting gears from one to another, and, especially so since  because I have so much time in my hands, I do lots of reading in both Spanish and English. This means that I am constantly observing, comparing and contrasting words in both those languages and discovering how some words do not have equivalents from one to another.

As I have written here before, Astor Piazzolla knew what he was doing when he gave one of his loveliest compositions a name in English,Oblivion. The word translates into Spanish as olvido which means forgotten. Strangely oblivion has a philosophic synonym in Enbglish nothingness. Nothingness and nothing do not mean the same thing and the Spanish nada does not in any way relate to nothingness.

Of late in my solitude I have been thinking of that lovely word in Spanish soledad. As a just-why-not, I would like to add here that Art Bergmann many years ago had a girlfriend with the lovely name of Soledad.  The origin of the meaning behind solitude in English is not as direct as in Spanish as solo, alone is the root of soledad. A not too often used word in English because it sounds awkward is aloneness.

Soledad is much in my thoughts but I have come to the conclusion that I am not completely alone. My two cats, Niño and Niña are constantly with me like glue and they vie for my attention. Walking Niño around the block (without a leash) on nice days provides me with good company even though it reminds me that Rosemary is who taught Niño to gallivant in our neighbourhood.

My grandmother used to tell me, “El que espera desespera.” This can barely be translated as in Spanish there is a play on words involving esperar to wait and to desesperar to despair. So my grandmother’s expression would translate as, “He who waits will despair.”

Somehow these words below by Epicurus bring me a “I don’t give a damn attitude” so I do not despair as I wait for my inevitable oblivion.

Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo (I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care)

 

19 January 2022

Aging photographers are like the aging gunfighters of the Wild West. You are as good as your last shot. You are dead if you are not.

In my past as a magazine photographer I knew I had to return from an assignment with one useable photograph. I was a fisherman who had to return with one fish and not mention how another had gotten away.

With our ranging pandemic and my grief on the loss of my Rosemary on 9 December 2020 photography is one of the last things I want to attempt. I cannot hang up my camera as I have too many cameras to hang up and little wall space in my oficina.

Fortunately I have friends and C is a good one. She has picked up my spirits by posing for me today.

Because of Covid I did not want to use my small and intimate studio so I converted my living room into one. This meant I tripped over cables and had a hard time dealing with my Fuji X-E3 that today amply proved that inanimate objects have free will.

Fortunatly with the lovely inspiration of C I think I may now be out of my doldrums.

I have yet to look at the Fuji pictures but what you see here is a photograph I took with my iPhone3G (it has no SIM card).

I believe, going back to the comparison with the aging gun fighter, it would seem I will be around for the next shoot.