Saturday, April 21, 2012



On Friday I braved walking through the pall of the pot smoke of our Vancouver Art Gallery to meet up with my friend Graham Walker at Christ Church Cathedral. We were there to listen to one of the most unusual concerts of the last few years which happened to be part of the 2011-2011 Early Music Vancouver season.

More than ever before Walker and I knew we were going to listen to music we had never listened to before. We did not know that we would also see a collection of musical instruments that were unique, too.

We arrived early for a pre-concert introduction by The Boston Camerata Musical Director (a very French singer) Anne Azéma and Mehmet Sanlikol with a musical pedigree so long that I could go on forever here with its listing. Sanlikol was the leader of Dünya a Turkish-American ensemble (my Bosnian Muslim friend Andre deMondo told me that it means cantaloupe).

The two groups were arranged so that the Boston Camerata representing the West was to our left while Dünya was on our right as the East. The program covered the traditions and stories on Alexander the Great as recorded in various countries through the centuries.

Both Sanlikol and percussionist (both Turkish) sang with those in-between notes that we in the West sometimes find disturbing. But I was soon figuring out where Flamenco came from and I thought I could now appreciate the call of the muezzin to prayer.

Since the music on the Boston Camerata side was music that preceded the 16th century there were far more similarities between East and West that I was able to discern than out and out differences. It would seem that the decisive battle of Lepanto (fought by the famous “manco de lepanto”) and the unsuccessful siege of Vienna by the Ottomans separated two musical worlds and their respective systems for centuries.

As a boy, before there were any Austrian strongmen playing robots I found my heroes in the likes of Gene Autrey, Tarzan and the Lone Ranger. In history my two heroes were Alexander and Achilles. Both gave me the opportunity to craft wooden swords and cardboard shields. My interest in both heroes led me to even read both the fictional and real biography of Alexander by Mary Renault.

My infatuation with Claire Bloom led me to see the awful 1956 film with Richard Burton in which Bloom played a love interest called Barsine. The film was made in an age where the supposed homosexual relationship between Alexander and his dear friend (and general) Hephaestion would have been verboten. And the film never even mentioned the Persian princess; Roxana whom he married as an example by Alexander on how west should meet east, intermarry and produce what may have been the first incidence of cultural globalization, a Greek age.
 

As I drove home from Friday’s concert I had plenty of time to reflect on the excellence of the concert I had attended and how my curiosity for the music of the East had been renewed. Until then I had that favourite Dave Brubeck Quartet number called The Golden Horn. It was a teaser but not as good a one as Friday’s concert Alexander the Great: Hero, Warrior, Lover.

The Golden Horn

Addendum: Mehmet Sanlikol has written me and graciously pointed out: By the way, I have known that “dinja” in Croatian means cantaloupe but “dünya/dunya” in Turkish, Arabic, Greek and a few other languages means the world. You can learn more about us (and our name) here

Friday, April 20, 2012




I happen to have a very rare South African edition of  W. Somerset Maugham's Complete Short Stories in two volumes. Volume I is called East and West and Volume 2 is The World Over. These two volumes were published in 1924. What is unusual is that the books are illustrated by notable South African photographer ( 1875-1937, from Durban) Willoughby Blew. The photos here illustrate Maugham's story The Soporific Davenport.






All photographs copyright  - Estate of Willoughby Blew.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

My grandfather Harry Waterhouse-Hayward was from Manchester. He had a son with his common law wife Ellen Carter in England before they moved to Buenos Aires in 1901. It was in Buenos Aires where Harry married Ellen and then had two more sons (George, my father was one of them) and three daughters. Harry was eccentric. He loved to dance and it seems he was going to miss an important dance because he had a painful foot. He went to the doctor who told him that he had an infected toe (I am not sure which one of the toes it was) and there was no positive prognosis for it. Harry told the doctor to amputate it right there. After a swig of Scotch (my father did not specify if it was the doctor or his father who imbibed the alcohol) the toe went flying. Harry went dancing the next day minus one of his toes.


Every once in a while I go into a trunk that my father bequeathed me and I rifle around. I thought I had found everything. But under a paper lining at the base of the trunk I found, just a few days ago, a yellowing envelope with the picture you see here. I had no idea that my grandfather was a photographer. Perhaps he wasn’t and he obtained this print from somewhere else, and which looks like an albumen print of the mid 19th century. I wonder who this long dead woman was. Was she my grandfather’s lover? Did Ellen know about the liaison and urged Harry to move to Buenos Aires to take him away from her. I will never know but I hope those who see the picture here will enjoy a pleasure that came from what really is two centuries ago.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

My Mother's Red Shawl - El Rebozo Colorado
Byron Chief-Moon - Actor/Dancer






My name is Byron Chief-Moon; I work in the performance arts industry as actor and dancer. When my friend Alex called to ask if I would pose with his mother’s red shawl, I was intrigued by the storytelling aspect and accepted the invitation. Alex and I have known each other for many years through dance. Alex shared beautiful stories about his mother and on how she wore the shawl on special occasions. And my dancer’s curiosity prevailed and I wanted to feel the cloth on my skin, in my hands and on my body in movement. I maintain openness to energy that would be emanating from it, if any. I grew up in an environment closely connected to landscape which allows me a perspective on synergistic fields and wondered if ideas and thoughts could linger on loved or objects worn or treasured for significance. Also the color of red is important part of my life; red reminds me of the passion of love and the devastating beauty in death and to never forget the pointless bloodsheds.


Blood is also a name associated with my mother’s people. The Blood Tribe of southern Alberta; also known as Kainai, members of the Blackfoot Confederacy, a territory far from the home of my friend Alex and his family who live on the west side of Vancouver.

Upon arriving, Alex shared more stories about the red shawl and his mother. We met his wife, Rosemary, who graciously descended the stairwell pausing briefly on the landing for introductions. We are standing in the foyer which was transformed into the ‘studio.’ It was a lovely first encounter with Rosemary. After the introduction I went in front of the mirror and began to style the shawl onto my body, and more importantly to have the hands exposed. At one time Rosemary passed by as I had the shawl over my head, she paused momentarily, tilted her head and smiled looking at the sight in front of her, and I quickly removed the shawl off my head. After a few moments I then began to move with it again, carefully. The final styling came while I was walking around feeling the fabric against my skin. Finally, Alex asked if I was ready, and if I would sit down on his chair. The first photo was taken with the Polaroid; it was taken with the ‘Fujiroid.’ The Fujiroid was used to check for lighting, styling, position of the shawl and very important; the position of the hands. The pose was approved by both Alex and my partner Shanon, who had been visiting with Alex while I was getting acquainted with the red shawl.

I have a belief that if you take care of beloved objects they will serve you well for as long as you maintain a positive energy around them, or they move onward. I have given away and found homes for most of my ‘precious’ things keeping only what is necessary. However, I find that my blood memory still serves me well. I grew up in an oral culture a ‘living culture’ where we are constantly told the stories of the land and its people every evolving and adapting to the present moment; maintaining the love for one another channeling from the landscape. Where I grew up in southern Alberta, where there is red on the land and red to me is symbolic of whom I am - ‘The red Indian.’ My mother’s people the Blood or Kainai, still use red ochre as part of our face painting ceremonies, hence the name Blood (Red) being associated with my mother’s people.

I enjoy wearing red; it’s a passionate color for me and it’s also a devastating color too. I wear red on Fridays. It’s something I had been doing for years, and it’s my own personal memorial and a reminder of all the needless deaths in the needless wars throughout the world. In wearing my friend’s red shawl I felt emotions that I was not sure if they were mine, I thought at any time I would burst into tears. But I had to maintain from becoming too emotional, what helped was the constant reassuring smile of my partner who was the only other observer in the room along with Alex, who were physically present. Not often do I pose for a photo without directions, as most print work I do has been usually for the ‘industry’ and often they look for a certain attitude (emotion), lighting and style. This was a different session.

I was guided by the red shawl and on the innocence of the project. I lost my mother several years ago, and I feel I’m finally coming into my own self again, but definitely changed.

I wore a red shawl that belonged to a remarkable woman… a mother.


Colin Horricks Doctor
Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun Columnist
Jocelyn Morlock Composer
Corinne McConchie Librarian
Rachel Ditor Dramaturg
Patrick Reid Statesman, Flag Designer
Michael Varga CBC Cameraman
Bronwen Marsden Playwright/Actress/Director
David Baines Vancouver Sun Columnist
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward Photographer
Lauren Elizabeth Stewart Student
Sandrine Cassini Dancer/Choreographer
Meredith Kalaman Dancer/Choreographer
Juliya Kate Dominatrix

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

My Mother's Red Shawl - El Rebozo Colorado
Colin Horricks - Doctor



The red shawl to me means ‘addressing’ a matter of passion. As an ongoing student of Carl Jung I have learned to search for the importance of everyday symbols. Seeing the metaphor is what connects the mundane to meaning, whether in a dream or a strange circumstance in life or a patient’s symptoms.

For instance, sometimes patients come to me concerned with their heart and it’s really symptomatic of trouble in their love life. We are living, breathing poems.

In the case of the red shawl, it asks me to address my passion for medicine. Patient care is a beautiful thing.

I had a dream once and I woke with the lingering statement: “it takes a lot of nice patience to have a lot of nice patients.” If I’ve learned anything in nearly forty years of practicing family medicine it’s the importance of patience. Patience in the pregnant pause and waiting for a response or with a patent in addiction it may take five years of struggle to get to the beginning of recovery.

I love the continuity of care in a general practice – seeing patients over many years in all circumstances of misery and healing is very rich, a kind of reciprocal love.

Patient care is a beautiful thing. Oh, but the paperwork is another matter!


Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun Columnist
Jocelyn Morlock Composer
Corinne McConchie Librarian
Rachel Ditor Dramaturg
Patrick Reid Statesman, Flag Designer
Michael Varga CBC Cameraman
Bronwen Marsden Playwright/Actress/Director
David Baines Vancouver Sun Columnist
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward Photographer
Lauren Elizabeth Stewart Student
Sandrine Cassini Dancer/Choreographer
Meredith Kalaman Dancer/Choreographer
Juliya Kate Dominatrix

Monday, April 16, 2012

Corinne  after Edward Hopper's Morning Sun 1952 Mamiya RB-67 Kodak Portra 800 pushed to 1600 ISO

An article in today’s NY Times in the business section tries to explain why it is that facebook bought Instagram. It further delves into why neither Kodak nor Polaroid ever foresaw the likelihood of such a look (an old-fashioned kind of Polaroid or cheap Kodak box camera appearance) ever becoming popular. Would such an innovation back then have saved the two companies from bankruptcy? The answer in the article is that few companies can innovate in their mid existence. It explains that it is akin to trying to change a fan belt while the old one is still turning. The article by Nick Bilton ends with:

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - The Daguerreotype

Since it may be impossible to change the fan belt, buying a new engine, even for $1 billion, starts sounding pretty smart.

I suspect that this is not the only reason. I think that more could be explained by our loss in our-until-now love for perfection.

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - The Albumen Print

There are a few out there (I am not one of them) who are able to ignore clicks and pops in record reproduction on old-fashioned turntables and stereos. They tell us that they cannot abide by the perfection but sterility of CDs or the unreality of surround sound. I have quite a few CDs whose sound I love and I do not find them sterile or cold.

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - The Cyanotype

It is in the photographic medium where uncertainty has been removed by the instant in-back-of-the-camera replay of the last picture. There are no more comments from friends, “Alex I hope your pictures turn out.” Short of experiencing the not so infrequent glitch (My storage card was corrupted!), perfection is utterly predictable. Then there are those carefully stitched panoramas done in HDR (high dynamic range) that are as perfect as perfect can be. After seeing half a dozen I feel like I am being forced to watch 100 close-up slides of roses. I snooze.

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - Early Colour

Instagram and Hipstamatic are bringing (paradoxically!) imperfection in a most predictable and sure fire way. These companies have applications that render perfection (digital camera perfection) into the look of analog cameras of the past. In many cases (more than you might think) those using these apps have no idea what box cameras were, or exactly what cross processing was all about. The idea of something resembling a Polaroid is like imagining driving a car with a clutch. What exactly is all that?

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - The Platinum Print

Luckily car manufacturers of the past, in convincing former users of carriages drawn by horses to let them go, did not build cars that would deposit mounds of brown stuff on the pavement every few miles or leak steaming yellow water that resembled horse piss. Innovation was direct from one medium to another and about the only remnants of the horse carriage age that carried through for a while were names like landau or the running boards that served no purpose in the original VW beetles.

Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - The Box Camera

When people see me take out my relatively large 6x7 cm format Mamiya RB-67 and peel the packaging of my Ektachrome 100G in 120 format they are incredulous. I might shock them less if I produced a horse whip!




Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Time Machine Photo Effects - Cross Process



But all that perfection of our not too long in duration digital age has now lost a bit of its luster and that might explain the success of Hipstamatic and Instagram. When those apps become everyday fare what will be next? Meanwhile we will have to suffer through the imperfection (but oh, so nice!) green faces or red faces or yellow faces. Custom white balance in decent digital cameras finally reached the threshold of being able to reproduce the delicate colouring of a read haired person’s skin. Are we now going back to the old because perfection is not good enough?

The above are all done with one click. Slightly more complicated is the picture below in which with the same film in my camera I replaced the 90mm lens with a body cap to which I had drilled a hole and placed a brass shim with a tiny pinhole. The result is a fairly accurate reproduction of a true pinhole camera.

Pinhole camera photograph sepia toned in Photoshop

The Librarian

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Byron Chief-Moon

One of the frustrations of my current Red Shawl Project, where I photograph mostly my friends in my mother’s red Mexican rebozo, is that rarely do any of them ever write in their essay who they are or what they do. Unless you look up a recent project subject of mine, Patrick Reid you will not know of all his many contributions to Canada or learn that not only was he the youngest tank commander in the British North African campaign in World War II but since he was the tallest he kept hitting his head with the tank hatches.

I do not believe that I would be letting the cat out of the bag by placing here a picture of my latest subject dancer/choreographer/actor Byron Chief-Moon before he writes his accompanying essay.

For one what you see here is not the actual Kodak Echtachrome 100G transparency which I use in the series. It is a preliminary Fuji FP-100 C Professional Instant color film which most of us who use it call, simply, Fujiroid.

Byron and partner friend Shanon (a mine of information on the Big Bang Theory and on climbing mountains in Costa Rica) came mid afternoon yesterday and we spent time in the garden (it was sunny) after I had snapped my pictures of Byron. Byron was so easy to photograph that I took only four.

A roll has ten exposures. The other six included one spent one in which I had forgotten to connect my flash to camera while taking pictures on Friday afternoon of my family doctor, Colin Horricks.

When I snapped that first picture of  Dr. Horricks something was not right. I immediately caught on. The sound of my camera was different. That morning I had gone to the Doctor’s to have my ear pipes “pressure washed”. This painless procedure removes all ear wax and my keen sense of hearing came back!

Dr. Horricks in my living room was a pleasure that would be compounded next day by Byron and Shanon. It had to do with conversation and how rare it is these days. It is about the delights of sitting down to chat (without thumbs!). While one may see one’s doctor for years, what one knows about the doctor’s personal life is not usually known. Dr. Horricks looked at all my books and told me that he had many, too, but mostly on the topic that is his passion, all things Carl Jung. Who would have known? And who would have known that my Jungian doctor was keen to go home (we lingered for a while swirling our Calvados that we cradled in our hand) to see the second Canucks game?

When Byron Chief-Moon sat at our table, with Shanon, Rebecca, Lauren, Hilary, Rosemary and my son-in-law Bruce Stewart out of the blue I asked Byron to say grace. He said this in his native language, Blackfoot and the only world I recognized in the melodious language was my name.

Shanon pontificated on the Bing Bang while she and I both indulged in several helpings of turmeric rice and the barbecued flank steak. The evening was long, in a nice way with lots of sobremesa which is a delightful word in Spanish that has to do with polite conversation at the dinner table, after dinner has been consumed.

Since most had tea and my teapot is not large enough for all I made two batches of tea in two different teapots. One had an Ahmad Tea Aromatic Earl Grey, the other and Ahmad Tea Barooti Assam. The idea felt quite civilized and we drank both.

When Bryon and Shanon left on their way to the house that they have built in Bella Coola I realized how lucky Rosemary and I are to know such a variety of people, a variety that has brought a richness to our life.

I hope that this is something my granddaughters will absorb and that they will learn grace and manners. Grace and manners have to be learned (taught) and I do believe that one has no choice in this. My mother taught me, not always gently.

The proof that manners are important is Byron’s email this morning:

Good Morning, Alex and Rosemary. Thanks for a wonderful dinner and a chance to meet the family. Both Shanon and I are honoured to have met your family members. Wish you both the best, with your garden and safe travels when on the road. We are heading off this week to our place in Bella Coola, to transfer our 300 seedlings of veggies into the garden and to start another batch. Look forward to seeing the photo you choose for your project. Thanks again, hugs to you all. cheers byron and shanon. OXOX....