When people run into me on the street or in some function they invariably use that hated word “still”. They ask, “Are you still…?” and leave out taking photographs. It is almost as if photography was or is some sort of illegitimate profession.
I try to explain that the bulk of my business was with magazines and newspapers and that I was also hired as a writer. That is mostly all gone here in Vancouver and in the rest of Canada.
Because I am on the email lists of musicians who are still, and dancers who are still, I know of very good cultural activities of the city. None of those are ever mentioned in the thinning and irrelevant Vancouver Sun or in a couple of what I believe may be struggling on line cultural venue info pages.
I would assert that with the profession of the journalist almost gone and forgotten, I could add that of the once important publicists.
For a while the CBC had an active participation in Twitter but with the Musk hullabaloo the CBC presence is now minimal.
When I wrote this blog I wanted to point out that in Vancouver, a city with poor memory for its past, there were these five men, all over 80 who have the marbles in their head intact and are actively “still” doing stuff for our city and province.
The only problem is that many folks are impatiently waiting for the death of Keith Richards (I am older that the man) so they can RIP him in social media.
I cannot understand why we must wait for them to die before
we will be happy to write about their past accomplishments. They can contribute now.
This 80-year-old (extremely) experienced photographer has lots of relevant information in his head. He will die with all of it. This 80-year-old may have the largest photo files of any photographer in Canada. But I will die forgotten and, perhaps then, I may have a park bench in some Vancouver spot, not far from the rest of the benches of the men in my list.
