Saturday, June 23, 2007


In November 1994 when Robertson Davies posed for me in the Sun Room of the Vancouver Hotel he tried to railroad me into taking his picture with his eye glasses in his mouth.



I had seen this photograph many times taken by different photographers all over Canada. Davies always managed to look like the distinguished man of letters we all thought he was. This he was. But in close contact with him in the room, with his charming wife Brenda knitting, the experience was different from what I thought it was going to be. I was a bit intimidated when I walked into the room but in no time Davies had me relaxed.




I told him that as I child I had been an admirer of Leonardo da Vinci and I had even copied, with charcoal on paper, da Vinci's self potrait. I told Davies that I was determined to make him look like Leonardo. The process involved taking a normal b+w photograph which I then converted into a b+w transparency (slide). I used some German Uhu glue to stick the b+w slide on my living room window. I then re-photographed this with Polaroid, first in b+w Polaroid and then with colour Polaroid.



All along the process I felt that somehow I had been in the presence of Leonardo da Vinci, albeit a charming one who spoke beautiful English. A few days later I received a pleasant note from Brenda Davies which included three snapshots she took of me in action. I was thrilled!

Friday, June 22, 2007


In 1983 when I photographed Gene Simmons I first understood the difference between the actor and the person. Gene Simmons the actor posed for me and scared me to death. He personified evil. Then with a smile in his face he told writer Les Wiseman and me a curious story. While living in New York City this scenario often repeated itself. The door bell would ring. Simmons would open the door to face a couple of geeky teenagers with a question in their face. Simmons would simply say, "Try next door," and would then close the door. Simmons's neighbour for many years was famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. The teenagers never suspected who the affable man without makeup really was.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A year before Argentine born William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) died he wrote a book of essays (traveling in England where he lived towards the end of his life) called A Traveller In Little Things. Here is chapter XXI: Wild Flowers And Little Girls Thinking of the numerous company of little girls of infinite charm I have met, and of their evanishment, I have a vision of myself on horseback on the illimitable green level pampas, under the wide sunlit cerulean sky in late September or early October, when the wild flowers are at their best before the wilting heats of summer. Seeing the flowers so abundant, I dismount and lead my horse by the bridle and walk knee-deep in the lush grass, stooping down at every step to look closely at the shy, exquisite blooms in their dewy morning freshness and divine colours. Flowers of an inexpressible unearthly loveliness and unforgettable; for how forget them when their images shine in memory in all their pristine morning brilliance! That's how I remember and love to remember them, in that first fresh aspect, not as they appear later, the petals wilted or dropped, sunbrowned, ripening their seed and fruit. And so with the little human flowers. I love to remember and think of them as flowers, not as ripening or ripened into young ladies, wives, matrons, mothers of sons and daughters. As little girls, as human flowers, they shone and passed out of sight. Only of one do I think differently, the most exquisite among them, the most beautiful in body and soul, or so I imagine, perhaps because of the manner of her vanishing even while my eyes were still on her. That was Dolly, aged eight, and because her little life finished then she is the one that never faded, never changed. Here are some lines I wrote when grief at her going was still fresh. They were in a monthly magazine at that time years ago, and were set to music, although not very successfully, and I wish it could be done again. Should'st thou come to me again From the sunshine and the rain, With thy laughter sweet and free, O how should I welcome thee! Like a streamlet dark and cold Kindled into fiery gold By a sunbeam swift that cleaves Downward through curtained leaves; So this darkned life of mine Lit with sudden joy would shine, And to greet thee I should start With a cry in my heart. Back to drop again, the cry On my trembling lips would die: Thou would'st pass to be again With the sunshine and the rain. W.H. Hudson goes on to write in Chapter XXIII A Spray Of Southernwood To pass from little girls to little boys is to go into quite another, an inferior, coarser world. No doubt there are wonderful little boys, but as a rule their wondefullness consists in a precocious intellect: this kind doesn't appeal to me, so that if I were to say anything on the matter, it would be a prejudiced judgment. Even the ordinary civilized little boy, the nice little gentleman who is as much at home in the drawing-room as at his desk in the school-room or with a bat in the playing field - even that harmless little person seems somehow unnatural, or denaturalized to my primitive taste. A result, I will have it, of improper treatment. He has been under the tap, too thoroughly scrubbed, boiled, strained and served up with melted butter and a sprig of parsley for ornament in a gilt-edged dish. I prefer him raw, and would rather have the street-Arab, if in town, and the unkempt, rough and tough cottage boy in the country. But take them civilized or natural, those who love and observe little children no more expect to find that peculiar exquisite charm of the girl-child which I have endeavoured to describe in the boy, than they would expect the music of the wood-lark and the airy fairy grace and beauty of the grey wagtail in Philip Sparrow......... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had these stories in mind yesterday as I sat on my bench gazing at Rebecca, her friend Britany, Lauren and Tim Bray and Lauren Wood's little girl. We were having iced tea, Filipino ensaimadas and polvorones, watermelon, melon and grapes in our sunny afternoon garden. My granddaughter Lauren (she is going to be five this Sunday) was blowing soap bubbles by the centre rose bed. I could not get enough of her (above left in her wine coloured dress and below being made up for that photograph by Ale my eldest daughter). When my daughter Hilary was pregnant for the second time I would tell her (I may have been almost serious) that if she had a little boy I was going to disown her. Luckily Lauren was a little girl and I never had to carry out my threat. I honestly would not know how to deal with a little baby boy. After all, I have two daughters and never wanted a son. I don't particularly care if I am the last of the Waterhouse-Haywards. I think of W. H. Hudson's stories and wonder how they would be read in our overly cautious 21st century? Would any monthly magazine have published that story of the little girl? I can't get enough of my little girls. I guess that I can write about them and how I feel here and be safe. I have the protection that being a grandfather provides. I believe that W.H. Hudson wrote from an innocent heart in more innocent times and while he would have been pilloried now for what he wrote then, he was lucky to have been a man of his time. Perhaps, he may have even been lucky enough to be a grandfather. And perhaps, if Hudson had cultivated a rose garden, he would have come to appreciate the beauty in the faded glory of the rose. Seen here is a spent bloom of the Gallica rose, Rosa 'Alain Blanchard'.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

In my first year in Vancouver in 1975 I worked for Tilden Rent-A-Car. When I answered the phone (I was promoted from washing cars to the counter desk in 4 months) I had to say, "In Canada it's Tilden, may I help you?" I learned lots at Tilden. I learned not to rent to black people or native people as they were bad risks. I broke this rule a few times and the cars disappeared and I was almost fired. But I did learn a few useful things. In jockeying cars from our downtown location on Alberni Street (across from the Ritz Hotel) to the airport I discovered Vancouver's few shortcuts and back alleys. I have a very good Vancouver GPS in my head thanks to Tilden. While I didn't feel part of Vancouver that first year at least I got to know it well.

A few days ago I was walking west on Helmcken Street and when I arrived at the corner with Howe, I cut through the hotel courtyard of the Holiday Inn that is there. As I walked south on Howe, I saw a step well and I suddenly felt a tingling of memory in my head. I knew I had been near it. I instantly remembered I had photographed the McGarrigle sisters on it sometime in the late 70s.

I can understand how butterflies and birds find their way. They have a more advanced body GPS than I do. I can be driving through some street in Vancouver when I might not have driven through in years and something in my head tells me that I have been there before. It is nothing paranormal. It's just my brain's ability to seek and find coordinates in time and place.

As a 8-year old boy I remember when my mother could not return with me in the train from Belgrano to Coghlan (one stop) at the end of a school day on those special days she had to stay at school for meetings. She would put me in the train and Mercedes, our housekeeper waited for me at the other end usually with a Noel chocolate covered vanilla "Revello". When I traveled alone on the train I looked out of the window and noticed the neighbourhoods and their streets. Once without my mother's permission I took that train alone and walked from the Coghlan train station home (6 blocks). I arrived without getting lost and was given a spanking for my efforts. I feel that thanks to this childhood "roaming" I have a keen sense of direction and I know where I am at most times.

I worry about Rebecca who is picked up, delivered here and there and rarely walks in her neighbourhood. When she is in the car with me and we are near her house I ask here where she is. She usually does not know. So I have been teaching her a bit about the streets of Vancouver. Rosemary's new Audi has a compass that is built-in the rear view mirror. Rebecca and I have been talking about sur and norte and oeste and este. She is getting her bearings. We have to make up for lost time. One day I will take her to the Holiday Inn stepwell and tell her the story of the McGarrigles.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007


He suspects the woman is a prostitute, not because he is particularly good at guessing people's professions at first glance, besides, not that long ago he himself would have been identified as a shepherd by the smell of goat, yet now everyone would say, He's a fisherman, for he lost one smell only to replace it with another. The woman reeks of perfume, but Jesus, who may be innocent, has learned certain facts of life by watching the mating of goats and rams, he also has enough common sense to know that just because a woman uses perfume, it does not necessarily mean she is a whore.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
José Saramago translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero

------------------------------------------------------------------

Much has been written lately about Mary Magdalene. If that name has an e or not is one of the matters in dispute between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the colleges dedicated to her bear the rival spellings. To my granddaughter Mary Magdalene is very real. But this Mary Magdalene is many Mary Magdalenes. She is Rembrandt's The Woman Taken in Adultery and John the Evangelist's unamed woman of Verse 7:53-8:11 where he relates Jesus having a confrontation with scribes and pharisees over whether a woman accused of adultery should be stoned.



Traditionally Mary Magdalene has also been the Mary of Bethany who annoints Jesus's feet with oil using her hair and the first person to see Jesus after the crucifixion. It's all a muddle if you consider that we cannot prove that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist! But from my New American Bible (with Rembrandt's paintings and sketches illustrating it) I quote one of the most fascinating passages. I first learned about them from Brother Edwin Reggio CSC in the late 50s in Austin Texas. The passages (when Jesus saves the adultress from stoning) describe the only two occasions when we learn that Jesus perhaps knew how to write.

Jesus bent down and started tracing on the ground with his finger. When they persisted in their questioning he straightened up and said to them, "Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her." A second time he bent down and wrote on the ground. Then the audience drifted away one by one, beginning with the elders. They left him alone with the woman, who continued to stand there before him. Jesus finally straightened up and said to her, "Woman where did they all disappear to? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she answered. Jesus said, "Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on avoid sin."

Magdalene is real to Rebecca since we saw the extremely large painting inside the church of San Cayetano in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico two years ago. She was so taken by the 19th century painting that featured a blonde (just like Rembrandt's) Mary Magdalene facing Jesus and with a prominently large stone at her feet. What was about to happen was graphically ominous. We had to return twice to see the painting. Back in Vancouver I bought Rebecca the English Rose, Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' seen above.

All this brings to mind one of the most exquisitely written novels on the subject, José Saramago's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. I have the novel in Spanish, El Evangelio Según Jesucristo (1991) but I dared not translate some of he passages from the chapter where an 18 year-old Jesus spends 8 days with Mary Magdalene in fear of not doing justice to Saramago. After all Giovanni Pontiero (from Manchester!) was (alas he died) one of the most lucid translators of Saramago into English. So this morning I went to the Vancouver Public Library to get a copy in English.


After they had eaten, Mary helped Jesus into his sandals and told him, You must leave if you're to reach Nazareth before nightfall. Farewell, said Jesus, and taking up his pack and staff, he went out into the yard. The sky was covered with clouds as if lined with unwashed wool, the Lord must not be finding it easy today to keep an eye on His sheep from on high. Jesus and Mary Madgalene embraced a long time before exchanging a farewell kiss, which did not take long at all, and little wonder, for kissing was not the custom then.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
José Saramago translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero

Monday, June 18, 2007




Objectivity is a subjective invention of man.
Santiago Genovés Tarazaga

In November 1983 writer Don McLellan and I were sent by Vancouver Magazine editor, Malcolm Parry, to St. George's, the Vancouver private school, for a story that made the January 1984 cover. At the time I remember that Don McLellan wore torn jeans ahead of the fashion trend of later years. He wore torn jeans because he was poor. Facing rich kids at a private institution that almost guaranteed that those who graduated would have a certain prosperous future amongst the social elite of our city made McLellan ill disposed to write positively of the school. I sensed this and I believe that was the first time in my photographic career that I determined that whatever objectivity had guided me before had no say here.








I consciously took photographs, with a definite positive bent, that were to "balance" McLellan's writing. I had attended a Catholic boarding school in my youth and the experience had been a positive one. I liked private schools.

Later that year I took photographs of Mayor Mike Harcourt. Vancouver Magazine art director, Chris Dahl, asked me to photograph him sitting in a wing chair and wanted the photograph full frontal with plenty of room all around. He told me he was going to put it on the cover. He never told me his complete plans. In an age before Photoshop Dahl had an artist paint obvious hair on Harcourt's very bald head and when the magazine was on the newstands it caught me by surprise.



Harcourt never blamed me for this and our relations have been cordial all these years. I have photographed him for his campaign poster when he was running for premier and recently I took the first photographs of his early attempts at walking after his accident.

In April 1985 I headed to Victoria in a float plane with Equity editor, Harvey Southam. He interviewed Bob Skelly who was then leader of the NDP. Subsequently I photographed Skelly for his campaign to become premier (he lost). I had an admiration for this honest man who looked great in shark skin suits and looked at you in the eye when he talked to you. But I sensed a lack of passion and perhaps that's what did him in.



In December 1985 I was asked to photograph Premier Bill Bennett for the Equity cover. I was given 30 minutes by Bennett's assistant. I decided to take a make-up artist (Inga Vollmer) who would probably use up most of that time. I thought that makeup would work wonders on the man and I would then quickly shoot him in 5 minutes. I will never know what led me to chose a portable pink velour backdrom for the picture.



I had read bad stuff about Bennett in the newspapers and I had seen his wooden performance when facing a TV camera (except the time I caught him enjoying a not so friendly sparing with Jack Webster). I was prepared to dislike the man but I vowed to make him look as good as I could. I have always thought that it is the obligation of a photographer to do just that.

The day of the shoot with Bennett came and I was most nervous. Vollmer and I were whisked into Bennett's Vancouver office (at Robson Square). We were both instantly charmed by him. We quickly found out that in a one-to-one basis Bennett was not wooden. He was intelligent and we left loving the man.



Photoshop was still not available. I had to shoot with colour negative so that the resulting C-print (colour print) could be air brushed. And it was. Vollmer said of Bennett's face, "I never expected to see all the colours of a Persian carpet on a man's face."

Sunday, June 17, 2007



In the May 1986 Vancouver Magazine I had a feature article called Sequels of literary parents who had written about their offspring. When I asked William Gibson to be part of my project he not only posed with his son Graeme and a hard copy of his Hugo award, but he also wrote a beautiful little essay on a father's love for a son.
------------------------------------------------------------

"I was an only child, both parents dead. Kind of like being the sole survivor of some drowned Atlantis; nobody else remembers. The way back, it turns out, is to have your own kids. As a kind of bonus, you get to figure out all the kid stuff you might have missed on the way up. Like I'd only ever known how to make this one kind of paper airplane, a really clumsy one that didn't fly very well. So I started buying Graeme books with instructions for different planes. Now he knows about 20 different folds: darts, canards, flying wings, tiny little origami numbers that imitate swallows, step-discontinuity airfoils that I still haven't learned how to make...We fly them off the front porch, they get caught in trees, I knock them down with sticks. Truly the basic stuff of sanity."
William Gibson


My Father George