I first met Michael R., A.K.A. R.d. Cane in the late 70s at the CBC. He was a young CBC PA who specialized at the time in huge CBC variety shows that brought all kinds of celebrities into Vancouver. He was low key and friendly so he had many friends and was respected even if he was a young guy.

I have re-connected most recently (you do the math). He now wears a beard and besides working on videos in LA and New York he takes his unassuming Sony digital camera out to the streets and photographs what he likes. He seems to like some of the edgy inhabitants of our city. As an example in these pictures which I took today December 14, 2016 they include his latest friend Betty Bathory who has more metal in her lips that I do in my belt buckle. But she is not scary in the least and she smiles often.

I took exactly three photographs today after having a longish reconnect talk of the good old times when the CBC was hugely relevant to Vancouver and to Canada.

For these shots I used my Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD loaded with an old Polaroid back. I used two sadly discontinued instant films by Fuji. One is their 100 ISO colour and the other their remarkable 3200 ISO B+W. I scanned the prints but forgot to scan the last one where R.d. is taking a picture of Betty. For the three photographs I used a large ring-flash with my RB and a 90mm lens (a normal lens in this 6x7cm format). I purposely placed the camera crooked so that the lens would “see” the edge of the ring flash.

The odd looking photographs are the parts of the instant film that you peel (and we idiots used to throw away). I rapidly air dry them with a hair dryer and then after scanning them I reverse them in Photoshop. I then play around with contrast levels until I get the right look.

I look forward to taking more pictures of Cane with more of his unusual friends.