Teresa Brown -- Discovered - Revisited
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Teresa Brown had one of the most arresting faces I ever saw.
Until a couple of days ago (I am writing this December 13, 2016) I had long
forgotten her name. In fact I had lost the negatives. I could not find them
perhaps because of the forgotten name. But I did remember that I had blogged
about her some years ago. I could not find the blog because I did not known her
name and I had no further references except that I might have photographed her in
West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park. In my Blogger blog search engine (it is
excellent, Lighthouse Park did not bring up her blog.
I have never understood how a painter can produce a magnum
opus and then see it sold to someone. We photographers (or at least this one)
value our original negatives and slides. The loss of negatives is traumatic.
And more so, as tomorrow December 14 I am going to
photograph her ex beau from 30 years ago (when I took the photographs of Teresa
Brown). Her beau, a former PA at the CBC in the late 70s and early 80s now goes
by the name of R.d. Cane. Hew is a very good photographer. He has a large beard and he is coming with a young
friend with very short hair called Ripley. I wanted to show Cane those
photographs.
In a conversation Cane told me that the woman’s name was
Teresa Brown. That did not help but yesterday December12th when I went to
Vancouver’s Granville Island to pick up my youngest granddaughter Lauren, 14,
from her ballet and modern dance class I remembered.
In the very early 80s I was the stills photographer for a
CBC drama show that was being shot in a lovely place called Egmont in BC. My
shoots happened on weekends during a long summer. The show featured a de
Havilland Beaver which would pick me up Friday afternoon and bring me back
Sunday evening. In one of those returns I spotted what I thought was a hallucination.
It was a Greek temple on a rocky promontory in West Vancouver. I asked the
pilot who told me it was called Parthenon Place. A very rich Greek business man
had built the small replica of the Parthenon for his homesick wife.
And it was there where I photographed Teresa Brown. I
punched in Parthenon Place and found this.
Now Parthenon Place is long gone and probably a
multi-million mansion now sits there. But it existed and the proof can be seen
in my pictures and another blog here.
I thought I would give Teresa a second go-around and I
re-scanned and re-interpreted them.
Tomorrow, when Cane and Ripley show up I will show them
this. As for Teresa Brown we have no idea where she might be. I remember that I used a Pentax Spotmatic and a 20mm lens. The film was Kodak S0 115 which had an extended red sensitivity which made skin especially luminous.
