W. (William) Eugene Smith was a famous American photographer of the 20th century. In a Popular Photography Magazine article about him that I read in the early 70s I will never forget that he said he adored going into his darkroom (a very messy one) with some negatives, good music and whiskey.

For many years until about almost two years ago I did that but minus the whiskey. Until the late 1990s (when I quit the habit) I used to smoke my pipe in that darkroom (which had no ventilation). The smoke shared time with developer and fixer fumes and most importantly with the bath of selenium toner that I used to make my photographs archival. This latter product is a known carcinogen.

When my Rosemary and I moved to our current Kitsilano duplex I had to give up that darkroom. It was a brutal feeling of loss which somehow I have managed to rationalize by the fact that I shoot a lot with my digital cameras and my very good Epson scanner does wonders with the b+w negatives and colour negatives that I load my 35mm and 120 format cameras. These digital could not have been handled in the classic darkroom.

The output of a scanner is digital and with my Canon Pro-1 printer I can print to my heart’s content in a room full of light (no music) and with fresh clean air.

While W. Eugene Smith might not have agreed with my present situation, I do like to sit at my computer after picking a negative I have not done anything with. I then monkey with it with the help of a scanner and my 13 year old Photoshop.

What you see here is a Polaroid Instant b+w negative that is 7x7 cm in size. My subject was a beautiful woman called Belinda Carr who was my model for a seminar I gave many years ago on figure photography.

I projected on her with an optical spotlight that had a gobo of a night skyline scene. I gave her the print (which had to be coated!) but kept the negatives (3 in all).

When I scan anything with my Epson I scan it in three colours. Since the negative does not lie completely flat on the glass you get the odd colours.

I enhance those colours by going to Photoshop’s Shadow/Highlight tool. This tool is the most useful tool as it will bring back shadow detail (that has always been there!) that old commercial printing papers could never really handle. When I abuse this tool the pleasant (to me) colour shifts happen. I up the sharpness and contrast with Corel’s Paint Shop Pro X2 photo program. In my  opinion this program is excellent (and cheap!).

On a nice Saturday afternoon where I can see the sun on my deck and the birds hanging out in my bird feeder I believe I am as happy as W. Eugene Smith ever was.

Mérida, the capital city of the State of Yucatán is perhaps the safest city in Mexico and one of the safest anywhere. The people are friendly because as Mayans they inherited the peaceful philosophy of the Feathered Serpent god Kukulcán. Unlike the Aztecs, who worshiped Huitzilopochtli the god of war, sun and human sacrifice, the Mayans were far gentler. The smiles on their faces reflect their rosy point of view.

Mérida is safe from most theft and there are few people dying as the result of guns. I believe that the “narcotraficantes” are not yet doing business in Mérida.

While waiting for our bus on Calle 60 with Calle 37 we spotted this gentleman in his crisp Yucatecan guayabera. Could this be the beginning of the end for this fine city? 

I tried to take this photograph on the sly but the man noticed and he threatened me verbally. I told Rosemary to hold my hand and we moved away to where there were a group of people. We felt safe as the sun set over lovely Mérida.

My career as a magazine photographer has been a balance of dealing with some of the best art directors around and with some that insisted in using words I had no concept for.

When I showed my portraits that were attempts to fashion to the latter art directors they would use an expression, “Your photos need to show attitude”.

When I showed my well lit portraits to them they often said, “These are too well lit. You need to be edgy.”

When I showed those portraits in which it was obvious I had used a stylist and talked at length with my subjects they would say, “You need to be a fly on the wall and shoot.”

There was no way I could ever satisfy them. Now being 75 and obsolete, redundant & retired I need not shoot anything where I have to please any of those guys. I must interject that I did deal with a fantastic woman magazine art director called Barbara Solowan. She would send me faxes with her drawings. Once the instructions were, “Make believe it is a cover for Vanity Fair.”

For many years I have been dealing with a personal interest in shooting images that are erotic. In my waning life I have found that Eros is more subtle. This means that fewer private parts (if any) have to show. I have discovered in shooting that if the message is confusing and difficult to interpret, it is all for the better. I believe that I have found (finally!) an awareness of what those guys meant when they said, “Shoot edgy.”

I still don't know what they meant by "attitude".

When I received a Manila envelope from Herizons Magazine today I knew what I would find. That did not diminish the excitement, enjoyment of seeing one of my portraits in print. I remember my first one sometime in 1976 for a Vancouver travel magazine that featured my cover of a Mayan ruin in Yucatán. Since then I may have had at least 300 covers and countless two-page spreads and full bleed pages. But that excitement always seems new.

This time around it was about a portrait I took of Jane Rule some years ago for Books In Canada. I wrote about being scared of facing this woman and how she won me over here. I have been told that this portrait became Rule’s favourite.

That the envelope containing the magazine, also included a check (a strange event in this day and age!), was even more thrilling.

But the biggest thrill was reading (yes we photographers do read) the interview of Rule by writer Keith Louise Fulton in 1993 that had this:

Keith Louise Fulton: Are there problems writing fiction that includes lesbians, when literature has left out lesbians’ life experiences? Did you try to make your own audience, or were you just having to deal with the dilemma of being understood?

Jane Rule: I wanted to be clear. But I also didn’t want to be interrupted by being concerned about people misreading my work. I didn’t want to be distracted. It’s easy to be silenced or to cater in wrong ways, and I thought my job is to make the worlds I see as clearly as I can. If people come of good will, they will be welcome. But I am not writing books for my enemies. I’m not writing books for anybody but me. I mean, it’s the function of the spider to spin the web, and I had to make a world I could live in. And I think that’s the basic impetus to write – Because there isn’t a found world. I don’t know, but I think I was stung into writing and required for life to write, to make a world I could live in.

Jane Rule's Brownies

Since Rosemary and I returned from a week’s trip to New York City almost three weeks ago, I have been plagued by a terrible respiratory disease that unfortunately never deteriorated to pneumonia (I have had that twice in my past). Had I had pneumonia an antibiotic would have stopped it. I have been feeling in what seems for three weeks of not wanting to do anything, read anything or even write a blog. I wrote about this feeling here.

Today I feel a tad better and I am writing this because of a shot in the arm that came from Paul Grescoe. Who is he? Read here. But that entry does not really explain all that Grescoe and wife Audrey did in Vancouver to make the magazine milieu of the 70s, 80s and 90s in Vancouver to be as terrific as it was. It was Audrey Grescoe (and Andrew Scott) who transformed Western Living into to the success that it has even today in spite of the decline in print.

But I must also point out that my career as a photographer had its downs. Often when I was really depressed I would call Paul Grescoe who would gently (with a voice that could sell thousands of used cars) give me gentle advice (very good it always was) that mostly involved having patience.

Their son Taras started a career as a free-lance journalist that at one point when he wrote for the Guardian included my photographs in that publication for a first and last time. Few in Vancouver would know that many times Taras Grescoe would step in for William Safire’s column On Language in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Like his parents Taras Grescoe is prolific from his base in Montreal.

I must also record here a little article that Paul Grescoe wrote for Homemakers in which he wrote about the safety virtues of building cars that would have their headlights one during the day!

Today he sent me an email after years of having lost touch perhaps because the Grescoes live in Bowen. It has been another well placed Grescoe shot in my arm!

Guest Blog: Barbara-Jo McIntosh

My Garden, in my village, in France

Today, February 28th, 2018, marks one year that I shuttered my beloved bookshop [in Vancouver].  The closing was emotional, exhausting, and beautiful.  I said farewell to twenty glorious years, years of interacting with wonderful folk from all over the world, who shared the desire to cook and eat well.  And reading, the joy of reading real books.  How I lament losing my superb collection of books!  It was truly a source of knowledge and comfort for me as well as a resource available to the community.  For all of you who miss my shop and library, I mourn with you.

But time and tide wait for no man or woman, especially one who doesn’t care to sit quietly. So, I took an enormous leap of faith and found myself in France, renovating an old house.  Many of us dream of moving to a village in Europe, old and storied, quaint and pretty.  What a delight to purchase a house with hundreds of years of history and memories.  The residue of other people’s lives clinging to the walls.  And a garden, a private garden.  I am still in disbelief that this house is actually mine. I am the owner of a house in France, with a desire to leave my notch in the annals of its existence.

I did not set out to purchase a house in France.  Oh, I had an odd thought about it from time to time but I never seriously inspected the idea.  But one day, in this village, I was enjoying a glass of wine with friends and someone mentioned the house across the rue was for sale.  Madame had passed and her family was going to sell the house she had lived in for 50 years.  Someone else expressed the desire to see the house and I said I would tag along.  I walked through a dark house with many rooms and stairs.  We exited through the back door of the big house, into a courtyard which has a small house attached.  I saw two doors and one window.  One door opens to a well that is shared with another property.  The other door opens to a room containing a large old concrete sink and a door leading down to a large cave. The stairs to the top floor of this “atelier” are on the outside.  We climbed the stairs, turned left and continued along a short passage until we found a door that opens to a workshop.  This was where Madame’s husband had obviously spent many happy hours with a massive collection of tools and a well used work bench.  To the right of this workshop door are a few steps that take you into the garden.  At first glance, I noticed that the north side of the garden is protected with a very high wall.  The other side features a view of sloping roof tops that shelter houses along another rue.  At the back of the garden is a structure resembling a cloister and, to the far right, there is a gate to a back passage which leads to another rue.

As I stood in the garden, I began to tremble.  A vision seared into my brain, swift and clear.  I had found a house, with a garden, that I believed I could renovate into a home for me, to share with others. 

One might think that when a cautious soul has made a decision to buy a home in a community, she would take the time to see what else was on offer in the neighbourhood.  Not moi.  I knew this was the house for me and I bought it.   Now, I find myself ensconced in the incredible adventure of renovating in a culture that is different from what I have understood, learning to speak the language that has reared this country, and wondering why it is so difficult for a tradesman to accept that I don’t want a closed door in my personal quarters between the chambre and the salle de bain!

And as is wont to be, life is everywhere.  The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.  To date I have experienced much joy, some sorrow, and yes, I am exhausted!  But the vision is strong.  Spring is around the corner, and when the planting begins I envision a new life evolving for le jardin,  la maison, et moi.

I will keep you posted as the world according to this Madame, moves along.  And if I work my luck well, there will one day be an interesting old house, in a quaint town, ready for lively encounters with good folk who love to read, cook, eat, and think well.




 Madame McIntosh
Barbara-Jo's Booking & Cooking