Saturday, February 24, 2007






1979 motto of the Vancouver alternative scene rock band The Modernettes.

Get Modern or get fucked.

A year and one month ago I started this blog with complete ignorance on what a blog was. The blog was attached to a simultaneously new web page, both designed by Doug Jasinki and Chris Botting at Skunkworks Creative Group Ltd.. That Doug Jasinski is also a lawyer brought with it some extra advantages in the wording of my profile.

Without knowing that it was a primitive version of a blog/wiki I had been a member some years before of the American Hosta Society Electronic Round Robin. It was the furious flaming in the forum postings that convinced me that my new blog should be what I call a "one sided" blog.

I was unsure on what the content of my blog was to be until I noticed my attraction to Bill Richardsons's CBC Radio show Bunny Watson. Alas! This radio program has been discontinued, but my memory of the program's quirky bringing together of apparently random facts through association has been my inspiration for my blog since. It is because of my blog's randomness that I have resisted classifying it into categories.

My new blog went along for a few weeks and was somehow noticed by Tim Bray who immediately advised me on two very necessary features. One was the RSS feed and the other the individual address links to every day's postings. I asked Bray what an RSS feed was and he told me, "Don't ask me, just tell your folks to install it." Looking into other blogs also convinced me on a self-imposed structure of:

1. No ranting.
2. No politics.
3. No religion.
4. No reviews of contemporary films.
5. No nude photographs. (I broke this rule once)
6. No blogs related to the day's news events except the deaths of interesting people whose pictures I have in my files.
7. No profanity except as quotes today and here

A large chunk of my blog has to do with my relationship to my granddaughter Rebecca Stewart (now 9). Slowly her sister Lauren (4) is beginning to share blog time.

Rebecca is not the only frequent visitor of my blog. My two daughters have told me that they have been afraid to ask me questions about my past or that there simply never seemed to be the time for them. They enjoy finding about themselves through my recounting of our past as a family.

I have been a freelance writer for 15 years and being able to write for Vancouver publications has all but disappeared. The incresing trend in using handout photographs (the same ones appear in most magazines and newspapers) has been paralleled by one of "modified" press releases made to look editorial. As newpsapers find it hard to increase their ad space there are many cuts in feelance hiring. For a while I was angry and frustrated.

This pent up anger has been released in my blogs on music, theatre and dance. I preview favourite artists and shows. I write what I want in the format that I want. No editor tells me I have to cut my word count. With this pent up anger gone my spirits are up and I can seek work calmly in the difficult market of photography.

My Epson 1640 SU flatbed scanner sits to the left of my monitor. It is a friendly companion that has served me well in my blogging. It has helped me make sense and put an order in my head of my extensive 30 year-old film files. When I don't have a photograph to fit into that day's blog I often find objects in my house that magically come to life when I place them on my scanner.

My wife Rosemary was at first aprehensive on my daily disappeances to sit in front of my computer. But after several valuable sales of my photographs found by search engines in my blog, including a recent one of Jane Jacobs to the Rockefeller Foundation she sees it as almost all good. So do I.

It would seem that my horizons in the blogging world are expanding. It was only yesterday,



at Moosecamp that I discovered a range of stuff I was completely ignorant about. I may not understand it yet, but there it is in my head ready to find future associations. Stuff like Drupel, WordPress and Moo Cards.

Friday, February 23, 2007



I know two men with similar names who are similar in other ways. Both Tim Bray and Tim Ray are soft spoken. Both of them have no compunctions about looking you in the eye. Both are ellusive or at the least mysterious about what they do.

I first met Tim Ray in the late 70s (seen here with friend Brooke). I was taking a series of photographs of musicians in Vancouver who were experimenting with a novel concept. This concept was called live music. Many nightclubs at the time were into disco. Tim Ray's concept was beyond even that. He was one of the leaders of the Vancouver alternative scene who experimented with conceptual music. I knew nothing of this. I took some pleasant photographs and was charmed by Ray's gentle hospitality. A few years later I finally went to the Smiling Buddha to hear him. The poster in front of the joint on West Hastings read, 50% Off! I paid for my entrance and demanded some money back as they were charging me full rate. It was then that I discovered that photographer Lincoln Clarkes had a short lived band by that name and I am one of the few that ever heard Clarkes play the guitar.

Some weeks back a tall and not so young man said hi to me at the DOA concert at Richards on Richards. I told Tim Ray, "I know someone who almost has your name."

I first met Tim Bray in his basement studio in November 1999. The Globe & Mail dispatched me to photograph him. Bray explained to me something that had to do with a computer language called XML. I did not understand but I took a pleasant picture of him with his wife Lauren.

In March 2002 The National Post assigned me to photograph Bray. I photographed him with his trademark hat. The folks at the National Post hated the idea of a portrait of someone into cutting edge computer language looking like an officer of the Confederate States of America and told me they were not going to use the photograph. They didn't.

Some things don't change. I still don't understand or know what these two men do. I believe that Bray may be a member of a new order of 21st century Masons who speak a language alien to most of us. There is no doubt in my mind that if he and his order pulled the plug we would fall into chaos.

Thursday, February 22, 2007


No matter how hard I have tried to increase my English vocabulary there are some words that crop up that for me are completely new. It was only a few weeks ago that I read in Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues (there are vivid descriptions of US Civil War re-enactments) that soldiers spooned when the weather was cold. I had never seen this word before and when I looked it up I was surprised.

Spooning has to be one of the most pleasant features of a long term relationship or, in my case, a 39 year marriage. It is particularly delightful when you consider what Rosemary's legs look like.

I can objectively say that the only person in my family whose legs were as fine as Rosemary's were those of my mother. In the good old days of deplaning on a tarmac we would go to meet my mother at the airport and we always could spot her by seeing her legs from this side of the airplane. My eldest daughter Ale (seen here with Rosemary in the Mexico City shopping mall of Satelite) also has beautifully long legs. In fact all my daughters inherited from both sides of the family and when I watch Rebecca at her ballet I wonder if she will one day dance the tango with a slit skirt the way my mother did.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007



Sometime in 1994 I was dispatched by Equity Magazine to photograph ex Canucks player of note, Tiger Williams for the magazine's sports column. While there I spotted Williams's collection of bear skulls. There was a dramatic cloud formation outside his living room window. I quickly set up my lights to get it. By the time I switched from b+w to colour the sky darkened.



I went back with the pictures and art director Chris Dahl immediately promoted my sports column photograph to the cover. Dahl, the best magazine art director I ever worked with ( I would add to that short list Toronto's Barbara Solowan). Dahl is now the marketing director at West Vancuver's Collingwood School. Should the school decide to publish a school magazine I would not doubt that Dahl would make it our city's most handsome magazine.

Dahl pioneered in Vancouver in the middle 80s the four-colour reproduction of b+w photographs in magazines. He would impart on images, as seen here, a subtle colour cast. I don't know of any magazines or publications in Vancouver, who more than ever have the ability to change anything at the last moment, who would have gone the route that Dahl did here.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007


On December 22, 1944, German General Heinrich Von Lütwitz demanded that Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe surrender with his US troops in the beleauguered Belgian town of Bastogne. McAullife's reply was terse: "Nuts." German speaking army medic, Ernie Premetz, was dispatched with Colonel Joseph Harper to hand the reply to the German couriers. They did not understand the slang word. Harper told Premetz to indicate that the Germans could take a flying f----Premetz wanted to be clear. He told them, "Du kannst zum Teufel gehen," "You can go to hell!"

I believe that General McAuliffe really meant,"I'll sacrifice my nuts before I surrender to you bastards!"

I have come to understand that in our concept of the brotherhood (or sisterhood) of man (and woman) there seems to be divergence and individuality in the national insult that does not transcend borders. My camera repairman Horst Wenzel, has confirmed that they do not use testicles or any allusions to them when they insult.

After many years of living in Mexico City, in 1965, I was crossing the street in Buenos Aires when a car suddenly turned and almost hit me. I screamed at the driver, "¡Pinche, cabrón!” which in Mexico loosely means something like, “You cuckold and despicable pimp!” The man stared into my face and nothing registered. By the time I rethought it all and yelled a very Argentine, “¡La concha de tu hermana!”(Your sister's cunt) he was long gone.

As a boy in Buenos Aires , my parents would take me to the yearly PNE-type La Rural that featured lots of livestock. I would always stare at the huge Simmental bulls that could barely walk, their huge scrotums dragging on the floor. Perhaps this is why Argentines use boludo (big-balled) to insult you if they think you are mentally slow. If you are even more challenged they switch to the stronger pelotudo (extra-big-balled). In Mexico this does not register as an insult since Mexicans would rather command you into having sexual relations with your mother. The more Roman Catholic Spaniards would rather “defecate” on God ( ¡Me cago en Dios!) than deal with your relatives.

But it is the Spanish (Castilian) expression for testicles, cojones , that has crossed international borders and transferred itself into English so that if you have them ( cojones ) you are perceived as either being macho, gutsy, or brave. Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte has written a treatise on the word. He cites that a preceding number is important. The expression “to be worth one cojón,” means that the project in question could be costly. If someone has two of them he or she is brave. One more or three as in, “I don't care three cojones ,” signifies a low priority.

In 1990 I wanted to travel to Peru to photograph the famous Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa , who was running for president. I was unable to find anyone who was interested in photographs of the man without an accompanying article. It dawned on me that I would have to interview him and to do this I would have to read his books of which many at the time were unavailable in English. In four months I read his whole literary output, including the extremely dense Conversación en la Catedral. One hour before my interview with Llosa at his Miraflores home in Lima , the butterflies in my stomach were the size of the Brazilian tropical variety. I told myself that if I survived the ordeal I would never ever have to worry about anything as being impossible or too difficult.

While I would never claim that I have cojones , I would assert that my testicles crossed some sort of Rubicon on that Lima day in 1990. I am often asked if I was not nervous shooting authors William Safire, the scary William F. Buckley , George Plimpton and the even scarier James Ellroy, in photo above. Was it tough to photograph Annie Leibovitz? I will admit to faint flutterings in my stomach on all of these occasions but nothing in comparison to my Peruvian adventure. The moment any photographic assignment is not accompanied by stress I would think my retirement would be imminent. Whatever it is they are called, we photographers have to have them.

Monday, February 19, 2007


On a cold day in late February of 1992 (it wasn't raining as it is today) Rosemary said, "Let's go to VanDusen." I could not understand why she wanted to go. What could there possibly be to see, with no flowers of any kind? I grabbed my Widelux, a Japanese swivel lens panoramic camera, loaded it with Kodak b+w infrared film and followed Rosemary out the door. I took several photographs but it is the nature of infrared film, in complicity with the Widelux, which is a highly unreliable camera, that I had few of the 20 exposures turn out. I printed them in my darkroom and I could not believe their beauty. It was about this time that I discovered what other photographers around the world had noted about Agfa Portriga photographic paper. If the properly washed (to remove all traces of fixer) photographs were placed in a 1 to 3 dilution of selenium toner (served hot) they developed a strangely beautiful split toning. They had a rich magenta/maroon and in some places a cold cyan/gray.



Because of Rosemary I had discovered a new interest in photography that I had ignored for years. I had always been attracted to the portrait and avoided the landscape. Shooting landscapes has helped me get away from possible portrait blocks (portraits are my bread and butter) and made me appreciate plants much in the same way as Rosemary appreciates them.

Last year the Vancouver Urbanarium Society paid me (a first for me!) to have a show at the Pendulum Gallery at the Hong Kong Bank of panoramics done in the style Rosemary had somehow pressed me into back in 1992.

Yesterday the sun came out. It was a bonus day as it was supposed to rain. Rosemary and I worked in the garden cleaning it up in preparation for spring. I have to prepare a lecture for next week at UBC Botanical Garden on plant and garden photography. A radio station is interviewing me tomorrow on the subject.

In this age of specialization, it took Rosemary to teach me that versatility is far more valuable.

The first photograph above is from that first series in 1992. From that angle it was impossible to believe that I could be in the middle of a large city and not be able to see a building, a car or a person! The second picture I took last April at VanDusen. If it looks different it is because this is a straight scan. Alas! Agfa Portriga is no longer made and Agfa declared bankruptcy a few years back. Even if they return I think Portriga is history.

Sunday, February 18, 2007



Last week in Rebecca - Richard Twardzic I mentioned how I got Rebecca started on jazz through Oscar Peterson's piano. The lesson continued with Andre Previn And His Pals Shelly Manne & Red Mitchell - West Side Story (Contemporary OJCCD-422-2). This CD has my favourite ever version of America. Next week we will watch West Side Story, the movie and only after that will I reveal to Rebecca that I have an LP with Oscar Peterson's Trio playing the same music. Rebecca was surprised to find out that Andre Previn and his pals were all white. She is familiar with the music as a couple of months back we listened to the UBC Philharmonic play Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story: Symphonic Dances.



It was in 1962 that I listened to the two jazz albums that finally cemented my interest in jazz for all these years. One was Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd's Jazz Samba. I remember that I wore the LP out with my heavyish Gerrard turntable's tonearm and that gave me the excuse to upgrade from a mono recording to a stereo one. The other record, because of its variety, would be my desert island record even if I considered Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. The latter, as good as it is, can put me into very long bouts of depression.

The former is Bags Groove - Miles Davis (Prestige-P7109 - OJCCD -245-2)with Sony Rollins, Milt Jackson, Thelonius Monk, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke. If there is indeed a God and He is indeed in heaven, then the above guys would be playing the banquet music.

Bags' Groove has two takes of one of my favourite jazz standards composed by vibraharpist (in those days it was called a vibraharp and not a vibraphone) Milt Jackson whose nickname was Bags. In both those takes I first discovered the piano of Thelonius Monk. His method struck me as playing the right wrong notes. Sometimes I reversed this into he was playing the wrong right notes. Because of my dyslexia I have always considered Sonny Rollins'Airegin (Nigeria) as the superior dyslexic jazz standard over Duke Ellington's Oclupaca (Acapulco). That Airegin is played by Horace Silver on the piano is a much appreciated bonus.

So it was indeed a pleasure to turn on Sophie's (our family Audi) CD yesterday. Rebecca immediately asked me if it was Milt Jackson on the vibraphone.



We listened to the one take and, after she correctly IDd Thelonius Monk on piano, we skipped to Airegin. By then we had arrived at her sleepover birthday party. Car school was over until the next time.

I think Rebecca is hooked.