Tim and Terry Turner

Vancouver has incredible opportunities for the photographer who might want to inovate. Beau Photo has an incredibly large refrigerator full of film which in some cases I have not heard of. They sell and rent the latest lighting equipment and their staff is friendly and helpful. It is there where I buy my Ektachrome. Yes, it is still made!

Once you shoot that Ektachrome our local The Lab will process it from one day to the next.

If you add to the above the experience and know-how of Jeff Gin, the manager of Kerrisdale Cameras on Lonsdale, who worked for Leo’s for 30 years, you have perfect support staff.

What you need then, to innovate is to be in some cases an old man like me. In my Buenos Aires they often say that the devil know more not because he is the devil but because he is an old man.

As a magazine photographer in Vancouver since the late 70s until magazines and newspapers disappeared I had to deal with pushy art directors who made me do stuff I did not want to do in ways I did not want to try. They were invariably right and I am a decent photographer because of them.

In the last few years I have had an obsession of scanning  2 negatives (colour of b+w) and 2 slides together with my Epson scanner. I know I could possibly do this with Photoshop layers. But I opt for what I think the more rewarding method.

One of my favourite “scanner negative sandwiches without mayonnaise” is the one of the Turner twins, Tim and Terry. I originally photographed them for a Vancouver Magazine article on twins in which my MD wrote an accurate explanation of what twins were.  Because I photographed the twins looking themselves on a mirror there were 4 faces in the shot. When I scanned the 2 negatives there are 4!

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