Prophetic Commentary on the Qur'an

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Allah said, 'The son of Adam hurts me for he abuses Time though I am Time: in My Hands are all things, and I cause the revolution of day and night.'

I had often wondered the origin of the term “time in my hands”. Thanks to Google in this century I have found out one version.

Today I saw the almost open bloom of English Rose, Rosa ‘Susan Williams-Ellis’ so I decided to scan it with a couple of Rosemary’s favourite grey plants Senecio Brachyglottis greyii and Senecio candicans ‘Angel Wings'. 

After that first scan, because I have time in my hands, I decided to include one of my inkjet prints of Rosemary of a photograph I took in 1969. Because I have dyslexia, I had some trouble arranging the print. That second result did not satisfy me as she was not gazing on the plants. After some confusion I managed to take that third version.

And yes, I have time in my hands.

Aristotle coined the expression “nature abhors a vacuum”.

That came to my thought today.

I often have a hard time falling asleep as I have never been able to follow that advice, “Don’t think; relax and you will sleep.”

When it is hot in the summer I think of Rosemary taking showers in Veracruz when we first met in 1967. When it is cold I think that as soon as I get home I will get into bed with her and we will get warm.

I have this lovely cashmere scarf she gave me some years ago. I have been wearing it when I walk Niño. Of course the scarf and walking Niño make me think of Rosemary and I feel sad.

The Cashmere Scarf

There is an old Star Trek episode that is much in my mind. It is called The Mark of Gideon. I can see Captain Kirk and behind him a window with constantly moving people from one side to another. Gideon is overpopulated.

The Mark of Gideon

In much the same way, when I turn of the lights people, I knew, friends & family, almost all dead. These people happen in my mind randomly. There are a couple that are frequent. They are my St. Edward’s High School good buddies, Lee Lytton and Howard Houston.

More and more, now I dream, and because I have to get up about 3 times to go to where the king goes alone, I remember the last part of the dream. Rosemary is now in those dreams.

All the above has brought me to the realization that as a human being I cannot seize to think and empty my mind. Does Nature abhor an empty mind and non-thought? No.

I have written often here how association is what makes us human. Can I stop walking Niño and not remember that Rosemary started it? Can I dry plates and put them up in the cupboard without thinking that both Rosemary and I liked to have a clear kitchen?

There are myriads of events I notice every day that remind me of Rosemary. I know I cannot stop. Busy distractions are only short-lived. Ultimately Rosemary is in my head. 

I find myself on my bed a lot during the day accompanied by my two cats. Instead of reading I stare at the ceiling and think.With my mind full my day cannot be an empty one.

Left - Ona Grauer 2007 - Right 14 November 2024

I preach to deaf ears that combining the photographic technology of the last century with that of this one, results in cool new stuff.

In my case a lot of this combination involves using my scanner with film that I shot in the 20^th with film that I shot a few days ago on 14 November 2024.

On that day when Ona Grauer came to my house she was about to be 49 on the next day. I first photographed her in 2007.

Ona then 

Ona last week

One of the supreme pleasures in being a portrait photographer is to photograph people more than once. It can be many times (as it was with Ona) and then when there is a long interval with no photographs.

Our session was perfect in that Ona advised me she did not want me to use filters or correcting lighting.

What you see here is a scanner sandwich of a negative I took of her in our first session in my corner of Robson and Granville studio. I sandwiched it with a Kodak Ektar negative I took last week.

It is my hope that we will shoot again in a darker room without flash. That is when the lovely matices (Spanish for color nuances) of b+w film will be in lovely display.

I the photographs I took this time I may have still been careful or simply Ona has escaped aging just fine.

It was not long after I got my first driver’s license (a Veracruz one) in 1967 that I married Rosemary. I had met her at the end of that year and we were married on 8 November 1968. I decided to teach her to drive in the blue VW you see in the picture here. She hit a rock and that was the end of the lesson.

I quickly found out you do not teach a marriage partner to drive. We had to wait until we arrived in Vancouver in 1975. A Dutch man (at the time I thought he was a saint) taught Rosemary to drive.

In all the years she ever drove (unlike this idiot macho man) the only accidents she ever had were people bashing her parked car.

Rosemary would go to visit her mother in Brockville in winter. At the Ottawa airport she would rent a car in the evening and drive to Brockville in a snow storm.

That was my Rosemary.

I have written at length and often on how we humans have this human talent to associate. Yes, I know that my cats react to making a noise with a spoon on their tinned food. We are much better at association.

Going down or up the stairs I see many of my family portraits every day. I smile a bit but I mostly feel melancholic. The photographs represent moments that will not return and indicate that I now have a fractured family situation with no more roast beef/Yorkshire Pudding Christmas dinners (we always celebrated Christmas Eve).

When I looked at this recently gold framed sandwich photograph of Rosemary (a fave right now), I knew I had to find some sort of association so I could scan and write. The frame with my driver’s licenses is in my oficina.

And so here we have it. My Rosemary was as good a driver as Argentine F1 World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio. And yes I have had accidents that did not happen in the parking lot.

Kodak Ektar 100

Kentmere 100

Kodak Technical Pan

Rollei Infrared Film

Ilford 3200 ISO 35mm

While I am a product of the 20th century, particularly in my profession as a photographer, I have found that the distant technology of that century can be nicely combined with that of this one.

Around 2007 I photographed the beautiful Ona Grauer for approximately one year. In my effort to tie up loose ends I have been contacting my subjects and friends in my past. I connected with Grauer who was most enthusiastic as she was going to be 49 on Saturday 16 November. She came to my house on the day before. She instructed me that she wanted to look her age and that I was not to use any kind of softening filters.

Ona Grauer then

Photography, particularly portrait photography, depends on the dependable pattern of consistency and routine. I broke that rule by deciding that I was going to photograph her with my medium format Mamiya RB-67. This camera has individual and removable film backs. I used 4 backs with four different films. To make it even more complicated I loaded a Nikon FM-2 with very fast 3200 ISO film.

Because my medium format film had ISO speeds of 100, 80 and 25 this meant that I had to be aware in how I looked at and set my two hand held Minolta meters. A further complication was that my 80 ISO Rollei Infrared Film necessitated the use of a deep red filter. I had to remember to take it out for other films and to use it when I shot with the Rollei.

Add to all that the used of a flash softbox for some of the photographs. Disaster perhaps? Not quite even though I tripped over flash cords. There was one embarrassing moment when I lifted the Nikon to my face and Grauer said, “Alex, you have the lens cap on.”

Those who only shoot with digital cameras often tell me that they can make any one picture they use into high contrast, mimic different kinds of films, do it in colour and then convert it to black and white. My argument is that a group of those different versions of the one picture are really one picture.

When I use more than one camera or different film backs the similar photographs are all unique.

To show off (just a tad) I picked two negatives from each of the five films I used and sandwiched them in a technique that I call “scanner sandwiches without mayonnaise”.

And here they are.

Post Data: One of the 120 format film for Mamiya that I shot is the now discontinued Kodak Technical Pan. It is the sharpest and least grain film ever made. I have quite a few rolls in my freezer. No local photo lab would be able to process it. I processed it! That exclamation point is appropriate as I had not processed film in 6 years. Luck was on my side and the roll developed nicely.