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| Left my daughter Hilary crying. She is now 52 - Niña and me |
As an 81-year-old former photographer I tell people that I am obsolete, redundant, retired and inconsequential.
C41 Café (2948 West 4th Avenue) owner Andy Wang has made me feel useful. I will be giving a PowerPoint lecture this Saturday, march 2 from 6 to 8. What is C41? (explanation below)
For a long time I thought I was going to die with what I think is useful information in my head. Thanks to Wang’s enthusiasm for photography I will be able to unload (impart?) some of it.
My grandmother, my mother and I were teachers. I did not become a full-fledged photographer until 1977 when I got an assignment from Malcolm Parry’s Vancouver Magazine.
I am, then, a teacher who became a photographer. As a teacher it is my obligation to inspire and not to disapprove if someone does not know that C41 is the Kodak chemical system used to this day, around the world to process colour negative film.
The problem with many photographers, in this century, is that they do not have the direction, nagging of art directors and designers that I had. These new photographers must find their own way. On Saturday I hope I can help them find a direction to better photographs.
The write-up that Pancouver Editor Charlie Smith did on me is lovely. I worked with him when he was a writer at Harvey Southam’s Equity Magazine (it was a business magazine). It was then that I noted Smith’s astounding memory for facts, tiny facts that escaped most people. He became the Editor of the Georgia Straight when it was still a journalistic force in Vancouver. Smith’s ability to draw out information from, to us, unknown sources makes him, in my opinion, the best investigative reporter of this city.
It will be interesting to find out how many people will show up at this Saturday’s lecture at the C41. Besides my PowerPoint I will have a show and tell.
New York Times (now gone) columnist On Language for the New York Times, William Safire said that any person giving a PowerPoint and reading what is in it, would be defined as “Death by Powerpoint.” You will all be alive when I finish my lecture.
Charlie Smith probably knows what I know about Safire. He had a fondness and obsession for women that had ankles that he could use his thumb and index finger to "circumnavigate".
