Stu Hodgson died yesterday.

While at the Dunbar Public Library (while my family lined up at the Dunbar Theatre for the lastest Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I noticed that a woman was toying in taking out the DVD The Theory of Everything. Next to it on the shelf was The Imitation Game. I told her, “If you think you will like that one you will also like The Theory of Everything.” Her answer was, “No, I’m not interested.”

Tonight I watched the first 10 minutes of Under the Skin with Scarlet Johansson. I found it bleak, alienating and immediately realized that this was a film I would not see.

The two encounters with the women and Under the Skin all made me feel enajenado and (to stress the point) away from a much needed human contact. Even Lauren had told me, “The woman with that orchid was rude.”

As we prepare ourselves with our slow move to eventually live in our more compact quarters I attempted to chat with what will be our new neighbour. Our neighbour is in the front part of the duplex that faces the street. Both our neighbour’s house number and ours are hidden by a very tall bamboo. I asked if it would be possible for me to put a sign in the front by the sidewalk. My neighbour’s answer was, “Definitely not, if people want to find you they will.”

I recall that when we first arrived from Mexico in 1975 some new friends had invited us to stop by one evening. I asked my Rosemary, “What is an after-dinner-drink?” It was then I came to the conclusion that the residents of Vancouver were as cold as their tap water.

This lack of warmth has rarely dissipated in our years here. And this is most noticeable in the always bleak and rainy November when it gets dark early.

Because we are moving we have been looking at interior decoration magazines, Ikea catalogues, Crate & Barrel catalogues, etc. All but a few feature spartan, black or white, furniture with mostly straight lines. The kitchens look like some high tech version of a morgue.The pictures on the wall ooze ice.

I wonder if this new age of keying in or touching screens for communication and entertainment has affected our ability to laugh, feel, have passion and warmth towards other human beings in the flesh?

I perused my extensive files of photographs looking for one that would illustrate my present feeling. I waded through portraits of my granddaughters, all mostly looking sad or serious. But this one of my daughter Alexandra Elizabeth taken some years ago at La Conner, Washington seems to be just about perfect. Every time I mention to Ale (as we call her) that she has in inherently sad face she protests. Ale was born in Mexico and unlike her younger sister Hilary who is as cheerful as her name, she is very Mexican in her ways. We lived in Mexico for many years and I found many of its inhabitants fatalistic and sad.

Part I

Few of my fellow photographers understand my method of using more than one camera for one subject.

In the days of magazine or annual report assignments that were one shot deals where you could not return so what was in the camera had to be a sure thing I started that multiple camera technique. Part of it was to take two of everything. Two flashes, double batteries, two exposure/flash meters and so on.

But one of the rewards of the above method is that two similar pictures taken by two cameras will always be different. Those who swear by a digital camera (what would happen and it does, if the storage card would become corrupted?). These one shot photographers (who might take hundreds) often tell me that if I shoot RAW I can convert a colour picture to b+w or I can add more contrast. I argue that all versions will be a variant of one.

In inaugurating my little studio with dancer Albert Galindo I shot with my Fuji X-E and with my Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD. With the latter camera I used Fuji Instant Film in colour and in b+w. I also used one roll of Kodak T-Max 100 IS0 film which I will be processing shortly.

As an example of the technique compare the scan of the Fuji b+w print with the one here from the Fuji X-E1. You might like one or the other but it is important to note that they are different.

The mirror shot (taken in our minuscule guest bathroom) is a continuation of my series of selfies where I also include my subjects. Before this one the guest bathroom in our Athlone home has been the one or in whatever bathroom of a restaurant that I can find!

My family and friends guessed (wrongly!) that my subject would be of the female kind and that she would have been in some state of undrapery. The fact is that my subject, Albert Galindo is the young and exciting male dancer who graduated from Arts Umbrella last year. He is an apprentice at Ballet BC and is hoping he will be hired on contract next year.

Galindo is from Barcelona and is half French and half Catalonian. He has the manners that you would expect of a European from Spain. His diction is perfect and like all graduates of Arts Umbrella he can indulge in conversation with ease and aplomb.

I was most excited that he accepted to pose for me. What you see here is a scan of our first Fuji Instant B+W (3200 ISO print film) which alas has been discontinued. I have kept a few boxes for special subjects like Galindo.

Galindo is a very good dancer. And I have seen many in my years. But additionally (and this is important) he has a presence. It is that double combination that makes him the one you watch on stage when surrounded by other dancers.

Thank you Albert for posing for me and for launching my little studio in what I hope is an exciting future.

A gentle prod to Ballet BC