Ellliott Erwitt - Dennis Hopper - Annie Leibovitz

As a photographer (and principally a portrait one), and speaking for myself I can state that I would rather be in back of a camera than facing one. But occasionally when someone wants to snap my picture I relax as I don’t have to think about how to take the photograph. I leave that up to the person behind the camera that is facing me.

I like to use the expression “who shaves the barber?” lots. I have written about the subject in many links below.

Years back I faced two well known photographers and an actor that I happened to know was a very good photographer, too. I have combined the three in this blog and I will not add any more information except that I am glad I did not think of taking their picture holding a camera or being with one.

There is one important link that for the three. I used a Mamiya RB-67 Pro-S with the 140mm macro lens with a floating element.

Who Shaves the Barber I  

Who Shaves the Barber Redux 

Who Shaves the Barber II 

The Barber is Shaved 

The Barber Shaved 

Shaving the Barber with a Scanograph portrait 

Brother Edwin Reggio - Who Shaves the Barber

Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' 16 September 2022

Somewhere in that digital cloud in the sky there must be one that has rock videos, old photographs of movie stars from the 40s, funny puns, a self-portrait attributed to van Gogh, or strange facts of people that are in the news.

Folks (an award-winning word that is as popular as the world moves forward) in social media, post these (a word that has lost its intrinsic meaning since stamps were done away with) without much of a comment that might just say, “I love the Lennon tune.” There will be no accompanying explanation as to the why.

My grandmother would have said to me, “Saludando con sombrero ajeno,” or, “Saying hello with someone else’s hat.”

These postings to me have no content because there is so little of the personal in them.

My thinning Vancouver Sun lacks lots of content but I do read the comics and the opinion section ( not on Mondays as they skip opinion on that day).

My blog may be ill-written or repetitive, such as this one in which I have a plant scan ("Not another!") of the English Rose, Rosa ‘Sweet Juliet’.  I am certainly repetitive. I wrote about it here just a few days ago.

Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' & Evelyn Hart

The few who might be following these might think, “When is winter going to come so he will stop these scanographs and show us some of his girlie pictures. Those are far more interesting.”

But I must point out that at the very least this blog has content, lovely content (if repetitive) and some personal opinion (perhaps even a rant of which I do not like to make with frequency).

I know, for what must be a fact, that there are folks out there thinking at night what picture or Youtube video they are going to post the second the find out that Keith Richards has died.

Luckily for me that happening before this 80 year-old-man reaches his personal oblivion, is unlikely.

The doorbell rang today and I when I opened the door there was a little box waiting for me. Inside was a copy of Jerome Charyn’s novel about Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles, Big Red.

Whenever I am about to buy a book I like to read the first paragraph and if it is not a mystery, the last paragraph.

I have written about this before here (link below). In that blog I mention that Jerome Charyn’s novel, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson has a killer first paragraph in its introduction.

First Paragraphs

Big Red is about the relationship between those movie stars as – Narrated by a visionary lesbian who reimagines the tragic life and career of Rita Hayworth and her indomitable husband, Orson Welles.

I was not to be disappointed by the first paragraph.

I was an ACTRESS that couldn’t act, a dancer that couldn’t dance, a singer who couldn’t sing. So I went straight to Hollywood after my sophomore year at college in Kalamazoo. Still, I wasn’t much of a maverick. I had grown up on a farm in southern Illinois. Both my parents couldn’t read a word. I promised myself that I would become a reader, and I did become one, with a fierce regard to language. But language alone couldn’t imprison me with its pleasures. I saw every film that reached our rural town. There were no picture palaces on the plains, but we did have fifty-seaters in every nearby hamlet. That’s how I discovered the world watching William Powell and Myrna Loy eat breakfast in their pajamas….     

Charyn has cited William Powell and Myrna Loy in reference to the magical Chrysler Building. Here it is:

Nick & Nora  Charles never come 

Since the death of my Rosemary almost two years ago my continued grief has curtailed my own fierce reading habit. I stare at the ceiling or read Argentine (I was born in Buenos Aires) on-line newspapers on my phone. I read how, perhaps, a young man attempted to assassinate the vice president, Cristina Kirchner by pointing (so they say) a water pistol inches from her forehead.

I am pretty sure that Big Red will return me soon to those reading habits.        

Hosta kikutii yakusimensis - Geranium 'Rozanne'& Echinacea purpurea 'Green Jewel'' 13 September 2022

Les Wiseman who wrote for Vancouver Magazine for many years advised me that if I ever wanted to write it was paramount to write about that which you know.

He added, “If you don’t know consult first with a person who knows.”

That has served me well. For many, including me, that friend can sometimes be Wikipedia.

When I scanned the above plants I immediately associated them with the name of jazz tune Blue in Green (important to note that is not Blue and Green). I know nothing of the origin of the piece except that in 1965 when my Argentine/Austrian girlfriend Suzy called me up to dump me and telling me I had no future or culture and that her new beau was the violinist of the Teatro Colón Philharmonic I went into a spiral made worse by the constant listening of the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue during a cold and very damp Buenos Aires winter.

The blue geranium and the green echinacea (who would want a green flower except Rosemary?), both were in bloom and I knew I had to scan them and associate them with Rosemary.

My friend, jazz alto saxophonist (and sometimes he does play the flute) Gavin Walker, has come to the plate as Americans like to say. He is the expert and he knows about that which he writes:

Gavin Walker

 

On Miles Davis' classic "Kind of Blue" recording there is a piece entitled "Blue in Green" and it is co-authored by pianist Bill Evans and Miles Davis. The album was done in two recording sessions, the first on March 2, 1959 and the second on April 22, 1959 is one of the most famous recordings in Jazz. Mr. Davis had a musical vision that needed fulfillment and Bill Evans was brought into the sessions even though he had formally left the Davis fold in September 1958. Blue in Green emanated from the first session and was the concluding piece. The first piece was a 12 blues called "Freddie Freeloader" which had Davis' regular pianist Wynton Kelly but the rest of the selections were with Evans. After Freddie Freeloader was given a satisfactory take, "So What" was tackled and completed. Then came the beautifully ethereal "Blue in Green". The genesis for this song came from an introduction that Evans had used on an earlier Chet Baker recording of the standard "Alone Together" and it is Bill Evans' playing that is the glue that bonds this piece. Davis' tightly muted trumpet solos first with an interlude from Evans then John Coltrane at his lyrical best floats in with a poignant statement curbing his usual tendency to play a multitude of notes then once again Evans injects an uplifting statement and Davis returns with his lonely and lovely mute that seems to leave the piece unresolved but then Evans reenters and concludes the piece with the arco bass of Paul Chambers and the piece reaches its logical conclusion. It is interesting that the alto saxophone of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley is not heard on this selection. Perhaps Cannonball felt that he couldn't add to the piece with his more earthy, verbose style or Davis himself suggested that he not play.

We know that many musicians profess to see and perceive colours when they create and perhaps led to the title Blue in Green. The emotions expressed here are not deep dark blue nor a bright and optimistic green but a pastel blend of the two colours that make up Blue in Green in a slow unfolding of sorrow, loss, gentleness, a tear and a sad smile too.