I liked bringing in models of both sexes and I watched how the men cringed when they had to take photographs of nude men. My favourite ploy was to tell my class that there were two ways of getting into a swimming pool with very cold water.

One was to enter it inch by inch (and suffer) and the other was to simply plunge in.

One way of doing it (the slow way) was to place our model in one spot (fully clothed and take a sequence of five photographs in which the model would go from fully clothed to undraped.

Every once in a while (and, particularly with male models) I would make my students do it in reverse.

At the end of such a class (if the model was a male) I would ask to see if anybody would surprise me, in the next class, with their best scrotum shot. One particular tough guy (he was a doorman at a Whistler night club) walked out and never returned.

We went through many models in which I suffered the frustration of being a teacher who had to supervise what my students were doing. But every once in a while I would fish out my iPhone3G or a Nikon FM-2 with very fast b+w film and would snap a few shots.

There was one mature model in her late 30s whose only name I can remember was Sky. Because she was not 20 she was not “perfect” and I taught my students how to handle such a situation as it was their obligation (in my opinion I would point out) to make their subjects as good as possible.

I wish I could locate Skye again and thank her for her contribution. While teaching at Focal Point I never took the place for granted. I miss it as it gave me relevance in a world of mine that was quickly disappearing.