Tuesday, February 13, 2007


I had the fun assignment to photograph juror Gillian Guess twice and for the same magazine, Saturday Night. The first time around art director Barbara Solowan sent me detailed faxes on what she wanted. They amounted to one thing, "Alex shoot it the way Vanity Fair would." For the shoot I had two secret weapons, one was a powerful ring flash that I used for the December 1998 cover. The ring flash did a special number on Guess's cat that made him look spooky.

The second secret weapon was stylist Maureen Willick with whom I have had the pleasure of working for many years. For the first Saturday Night shoot all the clothes and shoes (and those red ones) were brought in by Maureen and she only allowed Guess to use her fake Gucci sunglasses.



By the time the second assignment came along the classy Barbara Solowan was gone and I had to communicate with a young female photo editor who told me, "Alex I don't want styling or makeup. I don't want any special lighting. I want a documentary look as if you were a fly on the wall." The point was to show Guess wearing her special ankle bracelet with which the authorities could keep track of her movements. When I told my wife Rosemary of the assignment she said, "Hire Maureen and you pay her out of your pocket." This of course was standard advice from my wife, the best, as always.



I shot the picture here with extremely fast film and the only light used came from a bulb over the bathroom mirror. Originally, I had the idea of taking pictures of Guess watching TV, with my camera to one side of the TV. But it was Guess who suggested shaving her legs in the tub and Willick and I looked at each other and immediatekly agreed it was a great idea. Willick styled the shot (note the black bra on the toilet seat and the fake leopard coat hanging from the shower curtain and the slippers. But Willick may have gone too far. A book she placed on the bathroom book shelf was retouched out by Saturday Night. You can see what it was in the original photo below.




I am happy to report that in the beginning of March a new collaboration with my secret weapon (Willick) will see the light of day. More about it then, here.

Monday, February 12, 2007


I have to admit that for most of Lauren's four years of existence she has played second fiddle in my attention because of her more reasonable sister Rebecca. Since I have always responded to reason I enjoy seeing how logic has cemented my relationship with Rebecca. Lauren does not respond to reason. Paradoxically she is incredibly neat and is obsessed with order, unlike her sister.

She will not have tomato soup with melted cheese in it the way Rebecca and I love it. So I told Lauren she was going to sit at the table until she finished it. An hour later I gave up and got her down from her chair. But I am begining to understand some of her reasoning. She loves paprika chicken but will not touch chicken a la Barbara which is essentially the same thing. I was pleased when I served Lauren chicken a la Barbara, and called it paprika chicken, that she happily ate her portion.

While mothers can spot traits and personality in their children, perhaps from the very beginning, I am afraid that grandfathers (or at least thison) are a bit slow at this skill. As a photographer I have found it frustrating in not being able to take portraits of Lauren. She did not understand the concept of looking into a lens. When she she learned it about a year ago she suddenly developed the habit of blinking her eyes rapidly when facing my camera.

That is all behind and now Lauren wants to be photographed. She gets up on my lap, when I sit in front of my computer monitor, and asks me to see pictures of herself.

On Saturday with Rebecca away to one of those Saturday birthday parties (at the present time Rebecca's Saturdays will be fully booked until next year) Lauren asked me if we could walk with Plata (my female cat) around the block. She wanted to know if she needed to put on her shoes. In the summer we all walk barefoot on the hot pavement and on the soft sidwalk lawns. I told her it was still too cold for that. We went around the block and Plata behaved very well, following us all the way around without being too distracted by birds.

I now feel a great "gravitational" pull between these two heavenly bodies and I must find safe shelter somewhere in between. The prospect is exciting.

Sunday, February 11, 2007


Rebecca put her hand on the huge monitor and noticed her hand moving as if she were dribbling a basketball. It was so loud that she shouted into my ear, "I can't hear myself talk!" I gave her a pair of earplugs and took her to the one spot where the sound was almost bearable. This was on the balcony at the recently punkified Richard's on Richards. From there we could look down on Randy Rampage, the bass guitar player of D.O.A. This was Rebecca's first live rock'n roll concert and fittingly it was to listen to D.O.A., a band that while not being politically correct is perhaps one of the few that is politically honest with a perseverance and a sense of purpose that not only looks into the future but stretches back at least 29 years.

It didn't take long for Rebecca to discover yesterday at the all ages concert, that in spite of the shoving and pushing of the youths with Mohawks and wearing studded leather jackets ("Papi, those jackets cost at least $200.") sometimes gesticulating in ways that would have Rebecca sent home if she did them at school, that it was all good, clean fun. We smiled a lot at each other and we stayed not only until the end but we were there for the encore that featured a punk anthem penned by the Subhumans's Gerry Useless called F--- You! (I don't care what you say. F--- you!) I had taken Rebecca's aunt (my eldest daughter Ale) to an all ages concert at the West End Community Centre some 26 years ago that featured the Subhumans so that she could hear that legendary song.

Among the punk glitterati we also ran into John Tanner (he long ago pushed his long legs through the floorboards of his original Mini), the new music composer Mark Armanini ("These concerts keep me honest," he told me.), photographer Bev Davies (I shoot digital, now."), a healthy looking Tim Ray, and a gum chewing ("It keeps me focused.") and video camera toting Susanne Tabata.



D.O.A. played one fast furious song after another with no breaks. Both Rebecca and I were really drawn to Randy Rampage who was the earliest bass player of D.O.A. I remember him fondly for his heavy metal band, Ground Zero which I think was the finest Vancouver ever had. Watching him play you have to believe that he must be the bassist's bass player. He simply looks the part and while Rebecca watched him in awe I told her, "We are going to meet him later and you will see that he is not in the least scary at all."



So we did just that. I told her to sit on Randy's lap. Rebecca posed with the band (Randy Rampage, Rebecca, the Great Baldini, Joey Shithead) and was thrilled.

She damanded I buy her a pink D.O.A. T-shirt. Can I possibly be this lucky?

D.O.A.
more D.O.A.
And even more D.O.A.

Saturday, February 10, 2007


One of the pleasures of the pre-digital world was printing from my b+w negatives in my home darkroom. There was nothing better than to go down with good negatives, mix a batch of chemicals, put a record or tape of Stan Getz Focus (Verve 42282 19822) and light up a pipe. I ignored all who told me that smoking a pipe was only marginally less bad than smoking cigarettes. By 2 in the morning (I liked to print late at night) I would sometimes get very dizzy with the smoking in my poorly ventilated darkroom. I would get so dizzy that I would vow I was never going to smoke a pipe again. By breakfast I was already changing my mind.

Sometime around 1994 I suddenly lost interest in smoking. I would smoke the odd cigar and finally narrowed it down to smoking one cigar (walking around the block while doing it) on New Year's Eve. Then I stopped completely. I gave my beautiful pipe cabinet and last large glass container of Edgeworth pipe tobacco to my son-in-law Bruce Stewart and packed my pipes away since I did not have the heart to throw them away. I have quite a few.


The logic of having a large pipe collection is as follows. I usually smoked about 5 pipes a day. If you multiplied that times 7 days in a week the figure is 35. That means that you need a minimum of 35 pipes if each pipe will rest for a week. By resting a pipe you allowed the wood to absorb all the liquids that made smoking the same pipe over and over an upleasant and bitter experience. This means that I have about 45 pipes including some specialty pipes (like the Filipino one with the long stem as seen above). The Filipino pipe was one I smoked while sitting since it was heavy. The odd shaped pipe with the aluminum band was a pre (1888) opium pipe. This is when Charles Martin Hall discovered a cheaper way of smelting aluminum. Before then the metal was most precious and even Queen Victoria had aluminum flatware. I liked to take this pipe to the theatre or to concerts as its small bore bowl packed just enough tobacco for a short intermission. I smoked it at the Old Vic when Rosemary and I went to see Deborah Kerr in The Corn is Green (the show was terrible and we fell asleep).


My favourite pipes were the Dublin-made Peterson's. The mid-priced ones were called Kapets and my favourite shape (there are two in the picture above) was the Canadian which featured a long oval-shaped shank. I have about 10 of them.

When my mother returned to Mexico from visiting her brother Tony in North Carolina she brought me the Missouri Meerschaum (corn cob) pipe. With it she gave me a couple of packages of a very sweet pipe tobacco from Sweden called Borkum Riff.

In the picture is a pipe reamer and a brass cigar tip cutter. The gas lighter was given to me by John Lekich many years ago as a memento of our Railway Club tertulia.

I don't miss my pipe smoking but there are moments when I print my b+w negatives (I still do this) that I feel like listening to some Stan Getz and smoking a pipe. But that moment is fleeting as I wonder after 40 odd years of inhaling darkroom chemicals and specially selenium toner if somehow tobacco was the lesser of the evils?



Also here are what were my two favourite ashtrays. The ceramic one I used for my cigars. It was was made by Ken Edwards in Tonalá, Mexico. The quebracho (a very hard wood from a tree that grows in northern Argentina) ash tray is where I tapped my pipes to empty the dottle which is a bit of unburned tobacco and ash that collects at the bottom of the bowl.

Friday, February 09, 2007


Last night Rosemary and I thoroughly enjoyed Vancouver Opera's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. It was our 39th wedding anniversary. Since I picked her up at work but had to be at the opera in 40 minutes to listen to the Preacher of the Opera (Doug Tuck) give his pre-opera talk we were unable to dine out. I brought some thin bread (with the crusts cut out) egg salad and ham sandwiches and I made some fresh grape juice. This we had in our car, parked in the back alley of Holy Rosary Cathedral.

Even if this had been a terrible production, the music was divine. But it wasn't a terrible production and very much just the opposite. Mozart's opera (normally sung in German sung last night in English with a smattering of local aboriginal languages) was transported to a past, future and present within the society of our west coast native peoples. The sets, the costumes, all were beautiful. It was delightful to spot Karrisa Barry as one of the four dancers.

From our seats in front and to one side we had an added bonus to our night. It was a treat to watch conductor Derrick Inouye's elegant and enthusiastic movements as he silently (?) worded most of the lyrics!

But just as in Mozart's Don Giovanni I was more interested in the womanizer's servant, Leporello, I found Papageno (played just right by Etienne Dupois) the man to watch and listen to in this opera.

Perhaps this was so because he represented the Papageno I will probably never see in a full scale opera. Internationally renowned (well, he is on his way!) Prince George baritone, Tyler Duncan has given enough recitals in Vancouver of many of Papageno's numbers that I wish I could afford to fly to Europe this year where he will sing the part in some fabulous opera house. Last December, Tyler Duncan (Papageno) married Erika Switzer (Papagena) as seen here, above left.





While I have no photographs of this production I wonder if an opera company in Argentina (with the gumption of our very own Vancouver Opera) would dare mount a production of The Magic Flute set in the Argentine pampa and featuring lovely Argentine birds. Here Linda Lorenzo takes on the roles of some Argentine birds. Top left, Hornero, right, Ñandú and bottom left El Federal.

Thursday, February 08, 2007




I never would have suspected that taking piano lessons could lead my granddaughter Rebecca into liking jazz. And, furthermore, I would never have suspected that it would happen in the backseat of our family car.

Yesterday afternoon I picked Rebecca up to take her to her ballet. As soon as she got into the car she requested, "Papi will you play some jazz? I want to hear the Work Song." I would have to say that while it is impossible for me to be objective about her I can still say that's class! After all she was requesting the Nat Adderley tune as interpreted by the Oscar Peterson Trio With Milt Jackson - Very Tall (Verve Stereo 827 821-2).

Every other Monday when I take Rebecca to her piano lessons with Nikolai Maloff I always play piano CDs in the car. Just in case she thinks I may be overdoing it I throw in some baroque countertenors (Matthew White), music from Mozart operas and early baroque violinist David Douglass's, Apollo's Banquet - 17th Century Music From the Publications of John Playford ( Harmonia Mundi 93046 71862). Douglass is accompanied by Paul O'Dette on theorbo and Andrew Lawrence-King on harps.



Rebecca remembers him as the man who plays the violin by his belly button and has a fondness for blue silk shirts. I can assure you that her observations are correct as both of us saw Douglass perform at the UBC Recital Hall some years ago with his wife, soprano Ellen Hargis.



Last week Rebecca loved tango on the piano as interpreted by Emanuel Ax and Pablo Ziegler in Los Tangueros (Sony 7464-62728-2) and Daniel Barenboim, Rodolfo Maderos (bandoneón), Héctor Console, bass (Teldec 0630-13474-2) in Mi Buenos Aires Querido.

But now that she is on the jazz kick I have to go at it slow and methodical. She likes (I never told her it was jazz) Jazz Impressions of Eurasia - The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Columbia 7464-48531-2) and the quartet's Gone With The Wind (Columbia 7464-40627-2).



Rebecca is aware of my obsession with Gerry Mulligan playing his many versions of My Funny Valentine. I will introduce her to some of Mulligan's piano playing.

For a while I will concentrate on accessible pianists like André Previn And His Pals Shelly Manne & Red Mitchell - West Side Story (Contemporary S7572) and Ahmad Jamal Trio At The Pershing - But Not For Me (Argo LP628).

It will be a while before I have her listen to one of my jazz piano desert-island albums, Money Jungle - Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus - Max Roach (Blue Note 7777-46398-2).



And then, only then, will we sit down in the living room to listen to pianist Richard Twardzik play Crutch for a Crab and Albuquerque Social Swim from The Last Set (Pacific Jazz -37).


For a girl who can always spot my Hosta 'Pineapple Upside Down Cake' in my garden, Twardzik could be a breeze.

Please note that the pictures you see here are scans of replacement CDs that I have for worn out record albums. The Twardzik one is a scan of the original record album which is larger than the scanner bed.

I am having some difficulty explaining to Rebecca that Milt Jackson (vibes), Ray Brown (bass) and Ed Thigpen (drums) are African/Americans but that Oscar Peterson is Canadian. "But he is black," she protests.

A Crutch for the Crab

Wednesday, February 07, 2007



As an artist/teacher for the Emily Carr College Of Art Outreach Program (that was the name of Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design then) for 13 years in the 80s and 90s I went to teach photography in BC's interior. I visited many communities but perhaps one of the most interesting was Cassiar where I went in the middle 80s and then again in 1991, a year before the mine closed and the town became a ghost.

The first time around the town and mine were thriving. They mined "product" and only when pressed was the word asbestos uttered in whispers. In the prosperity of the time (it seemd that the Japanese used asbestos for drum brake linings) the town had a company cafeteria that served some of the best food and most delicious home-baked bread I have ever had in my life.



I quickly realized that besides satellite TV (soaps were most popular), the most active passtime was going after someone else's partner, taking advantage of the mine's shift system. Driving in and out of town there was a huge, ugly mountain that was not a mountain at all but simply a pile of mine tailings.

I was given a tour of the mine, which was thousands of feet above sea level, and then when one got there, one descended into what for me resembled a freezing hell that Dante could have never imagined. The equipment, which had to operate in minus 40 Celsius, was all electric. The big tractors and excavators had long, thick power cords that had to be man-handled by workers who had to work all bundled as they had no heated cabs to protect them. I returned to watch a night shift. Those miners deserved every penny they earned.

To get to Cassiar I had to drive from the Watson Lake, Yukon Territory airport in what was mostly (then) a gravel road. When driving on it I noticed I had two options. One of them was to drive safely and have every truck around pass me, blind me with enormous clouds of dust and then spray my incredibly cracked windshield with gravel. The second option was the one I ultimately chose. This was to drive as fast and recklessly as possible and make others bite the dust.



It was in Cassiar that I saw for the first time and for several nights the beautiful Aurora Borealis. At right I am posing with my class and above it's a self portrait by the Cassiar post office. I took the picture at midnight using a technique called extended range night photography.

The second time around in 1991 (I arrived on Friday night) I had the worry that no matter what the weather did I had to be at the Watson Lake airport on that Monday morning. I had to be in Vancouver by noon to photograph the person who was seen as the second most important man in BC. Ron Johnson was organizing Mike Harcourt's and the NDP's bid to wrest away the province from the Social Credit Party. I was to photograph Johnson for Equity's series of important shakers in Vancouver called the Power Elite. I was instructed to take a candid photo of Johnson at home.

After teaching Saturday and Sunday, a massive snowfall blanketed Cassiar and my terrible motel (it was called The Last Chance) was buried up to the windows. I knew I had to try to get to Watson Lake, no matter what. The only advantage I seemed to have (even though my students thought I had little chance of success) was that my rental car was a new-fangled front-wheel-drive Ford Taurus.

I made it by never applying using my brakes and using the car's momentum to carry me over deep drifts of snow on the highway. When I gassed up at the Watson Lake gas station I was approached by many asking me about the road conditions. The fingers in my hand were throbbing . I had been holding on to that steering wheel for dear life.

It began to snow and the airport attendant told me he did not think the small airplane coming from Vancouver would be able to land. But it did. As I was looking through the window I noticed a woman stepped down from the airplane. I mentioned to the man that the plane was small but it still had a flight attendant. I remember him telling me with a smirk, "Sonny, that there is your pilot and you better pray that she decides to take off in this weather or you will miss that job with that Ron Johnson guy you were telling me about." The plane's wings had to be de-iced several times and we took off.



A few hours later I photographed a cool Ron Johnson making Shake 'N Bake chicken.