Thursday, April 05, 2007


I had dinner at Rebbeca's last night and her mother Hilary told us how her husband (and Rebecca's father) Bruce had cooked the trout. Rebecca said it was very good and by the time her mother had arrived she and her father had eaten it all. I mentioned that the fish was a WTT. Rebecca asked me what that meant and I said it was a well traveled trout.

It all started last Thursday afternoon when the interim arts Straight arts editor Brian Lynch emailed me with the query to photograph actor Jonathon Young (and have results by that Monday). Jonathon Young plays the title role in this interesting Claudia Day play that is a Ruby Slippers production being staged at Performance Works beginning this Saturday at 8pm.

Young finally got back to me and he was going to show up at my Studio (last Saturday at one) which was his rehearsal lunch break. Meanwhile my Rosemary called around looking for a fresh trout that would fit my 8½ by 12 inch flat bed scanner. She found one on Granville Island. I paid $3.84 for it.

While Jonathon Young was himself when he came into my studio he was Trout Stanley (in the play he does not know why his parents gave him the name) he was in character when he faced my camera. There wasn't much for me to do except to click the shutter to the man I will discover this coming Saturday night. Lois Anderson is also in the cast. This pair has to be one of them most talented actors in town and Rosemay and I look forward to this play set in Tumbler Ridge. For me that is an added interest as I taught a weekend photography workshop for the Outreach Prgram of Emily Carr there and my students were already citing how the bottom was falling out in the coal mining town. Our provincial government had signed a contract to sell coal to Japan (for steel production)at a price that became well under the world price. The contract could not be modified so the town was on its way to go the way of Cassiar


After shooting Young (both Rebecca and Lauren were there as we had gone directly to the studio from Rebecca's jazz class at Arts Umbrella on Granville Island), Rebecca demanded to see the trout. At home I carefully unwrapped it and Rebecca picked it up and opened his/her mouth. She asked if it was a he? I told her I did not know. Several times on Saturday that trout paraded around the house in Rebecca's hands.

I scanned the trout and that evening at dinner, Rebecca placed the trout in front of her mother. I will never understand Rebecca's ability to pick up lizards, snakes, insects, spiders and now fish with an impunity that I find amazing.