Rosemary & Alexandra - Camellia x williamsii 'Donation' 5 April 2024

Alleyne & Barbara Cook - Rhododenron augustinii 'Marion McDonnell' - 5 April 2024

When I look at the new flowers in my Kitsilano garden I immediately associate them with people. They have faces, faces of dear friends and in most cases the face of Rosemary.

After a harsh winter my Rhodoendron augustinii ‘Marion Mcdonnell’ somehow managed to bloom. The plant was a selection of my friend Alleyne Cook. He named it after our mutual friend Marion McDonnell who was famous for having introduced to Vancouver the Blue Himalayan Poppy Meconopsis betonicifolia. Cook was convinced his rhodo selection had blue flowers. Few of us ever argued that the flowers were more on the purple side.

Rosemary’s favourite camellia, Camellia x williamsii ‘Donation’ is in full bloom. Were she around she would have smiled lots.

Here I have combined the camellia with a photograph hanging outside my bedroom. I shot it at the Desierto de Altar in Northern Mexico on our way to Vancouver in 1975. She is here with our eldest daughter Alexandra. The perspective of the photograph has always wowed me as we could not tell if the mountains were far away or that they were just low. Out of the frame would be our blue VW Beetle.

All these years later I have a constant disconnection with the idea that both Rosemary and Alleyne Cook were alive (Cook’s wife Barbara is 98 and I spoke to her today and she is just fine).

My guess is that most people these days have few family portraits on the wall and they depend on a not often looked at family album. In my situation, the many largish portraits on the walls haunt me as I go up and down the stairs or when I stare at the ones in my bedroom. I wonder if being a portrait photographer has its downs?

For me it all began in 1950 at the Lincoln Library in Buenos Aires. I was 8. The library was run by the United States Information Agency (spies!). I looked into an American Heritage book that featured dead soldiers taken by Timothy O’Sullivan during the American Civil War. I stared at the photographs and thought, “These soldiers at one time were alive. They are dead here and they look much like the men walking outside on Calle Florida.”

I have never ceased to think about that hinge between life and death.