Werner Herzog - March 1996

In March of 1996 I had the pleasure of taking portraits of Werner Herzog. He is one day younger than I am. I was born August 3, 1942. He was born on September 1 of the same year.

The print on the left was the best I could do in my Kerrisdale darkroom using Ilford Ilfospeed paper. In 2019 I scanned the 6x7cm negative with my Epson V700 Photo scanner.

Today I showed both prints to a friendly neighbour of mine who is an amateur photographer. He considered each picture as a separate version and really did not notice the amount of detail in the inkjet print. I would like to point out that I scanned the framed print and in spite of not being exactly on the scanner glass it is sharp.

For the inkjet print I used my 19 year-old Photoshop 8. Photoshop simply saw all that shadow detail in my original negative that the enlarger based photographic method could not handle.

What I want to show here is that there are aspects of this 21^st century that are better than in the other one. I was able to scan and print in my oficina without darkroom fumes and not in the dark.

On the other hand in that other century I had a good a prosperous living as a photographer. Nobody believes me that in the late 80s I was doing annual reports for logging companies and that I was charging a $3500 day rate (plus mileage and supplies). I had steady PR work with both Canadian Pacific Limited and Air Canada. My magazine work, in Canada and abroad, was constant. I was being paid to write for magazines and newspapers.

In this century I believe that most of that is gone. Journalists publicists and most kinds of photography have all disappeared.

I have two friends, photographer Ian McGuffie and writer John Lekich, who keep telling me that they were born and worked in the right century (the 20^th). I agree.

I believe that AI will eliminate the few photo jobs that are left. I see how in Vancouver shops on 10^th Ave are shutting down. There is little foot traffic and rents are much too high.

At Safeway if I am lucky I will find two human cash register persons. They are on the way out.

Detached houses with gardens will also be a thing of the past with the phenomenon of land assembly tearing them down to build town homes or high rises.

My neighbours even buy their dog food on line. There are boxes on their front door every day. Why shop at a shop when it can be delivered to your door?

This all began in the last few years of the last century when I saw this in the Vancouver Sun: Visit us at Vancouvergarbage.ca. That is when the words visit and share lost their valuable coinage.

I do agree with my friend, now departed, Abraham Rogatnick who told me when he was 85, “Alex, I am not long for this world. I am glad.”

So am I but I have to admit that some stuff is indeed better now.

I worry about the world my two granddaughters (22 and 26) will inherit.