Even though I am known as a portrait photographer I consider myself an expert in the photography of hands. I maintain that after a face, hands are what reveal the most about us. Holmes, I am sure would agree.

Hands are not often easy to photograph. In a studio if you use lights hands, which may be closer to the light will invariably be overexposed. Most people do not know that the side of a hand is at its best and that the front or back, flat out will not look too good.

If anything I have learned to photograph hands from my Rosemary ( "Alex why is that little finger there?" and from the countless dancers that have passed by my camera. I have had a business woman pose for me and when I notice how she places her hand I will ask her if she did ballet in her youth. The answer almost always is a positive one. Ballet teaches dancers, of both sexes, on how to use hands for grace, form and beauty. And there is this.

I always smile when I think of the beautiful Lalita who at one time worked as a server at the Number 5 Orange. She was Italian and built like Sophia Loren. Toni Ricci the man who ran and runs the place asked me when he found out I had photographed her, “Well, how was it?” He looked at me incredulously when I informed him that I had concentrated on taking pictures of Lalita’s beautiful feet in the rushing water of Capilano River. The reason for this is that I had for years informed anybody who would listen that the ugliest part of the human body (after armpits and neck folds) were feet. A female artist whose name I have long forgotten dared me to photograph feet

I photographed Salem for two years. The pictures you see here are from the first session. I must have known (even if my memory fails me) that she had very lovely hands, and of course everything else which was one heck of a distraction.

And so I have here these photographs as evidence that I am pretty good with hands.

Después de un tiempo,

uno aprende la sutil diferencia

entre sostener una mano

y encadenar un alma,

y uno aprende que el amor

no significa acostarse

y una compañía no significa seguridad

y uno empieza a aprender. 

Que los besos no son contratos

Y los regalos no son promesas

Apócrifo - atribuida a Jorge Luís Borges

After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean going to bed

And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises,

Attributed to Jorge Luís Borges