Her breast is fit for pearls,

But I was not a "Diver.”

Her brow is fit for thrones –

But I had not a crest.

Her heart is fit for home—

I—a Sparrow—build there

Sweet of twigs and twine

My perennial nest.

Emily Dickinson

In my career as a magazine photographer I used to boast that when I arrived from Mexico to my now city of Vancouver in 1975 I vowed that I was never going to photograph babies, weddings or pornography.

My vow was perhaps much too premature. I did shoot three weddings, my youngest daughter Hilary’s, Joey Shithead of D.O.A and poet Susan Musgrave getting shacked up with a bank robber at the Agassiz Maximum Security Prison.  After that a few friends convinced me to take pictures of them in my studio before they got married.

I photographed two babies galore. These were my granddaughter Rebecca and Lauren.

As for pornography, I have come close but I soon realized that pornography is something done in bad taste and my taste might just be impeccable(!).

There is another branch of photography that I have avoided like the plague. This is boudoir photography. But again I was close when a not so youngish receptionist at Vancouver Magazine approached me in the mid-80s with the idea that she wanted “different” photographs. Through the years I have caught on to what “different” means when coming out of the lips of a woman

And so here you have one of my first efforts at boudoir even though I did use the then unusual Kodak Black & White Infrared Film.

There is one element that I did get right. When in doubt make sure there are pearls.

More Emily Dickinson 

Sublimity mingled  

If you were coming in the fall 

 Purple Haze 

Yellow she affords 
A sepal, petal and a thorn
Her breast is fit for pearls  
I would not paint a picture
November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf 
We turn not older with years, but older
Now I am ready to go