Mocambo, Veracruz, circa 20 December 1967

Of late I have been giving the subject of what thought is a thought. We often say to ourselves, “I think I am going to sleep now.” That action is obviously a conscious thought.

When I look at the portrait of Rosemary and me taken in Mocambo Beach in Veracruz sometime around 22 December of 1967, is the impression that immediately comes to my mind some kind of thought or is it a different one? People who think of the past might have memories and they go through them. In my case when I see this portrait, my memory is perhaps more complete? Are the memories/thoughts of a portrait photographer who photographed his family extensively different?

My memory of my mother is also coaxed along when I see her portraits on my walls.

After a 52 year marriage, my thoughts on missing the presence of my Rosemary are constant. I cannot escape them, and I must admit I do not try to escape them.

I have written about this photograph before. I will repeat it again. I met Rosemary, from New Dublin, Ontario, around the 15^th of December, 1967 in Mexico City. By the 21^st I drove with her in my VW Beetle to Veracruz so that she would meet my mother. On 8 February 1968 we were married by a judge in the historically lovely Coyoacán neighbourhood where Frida Kahlo lived.

I cannot emphasize enough that this nicely framed photograph in my living room is a result of:

1. I took the photograph with my Pentacon-F (purchased for $100 from Adorama in NYCity in 1958) which happened to have a self-timer. I put it on a tripod and took the picture. The camera was loaded with Kodak colour negative ISO 100 film.

2. Because my eldest daughter Alexandra, in the late 80s, began to nicely file my photographs, negatives and slides in metal cabinets, I can find stuff. I was able to print this negative, quite pristine in spite of the years that have gone by.

3. The technology of this 21^st century means that I can use my scanner to scan old negatives, slides and photographs. This I did with my Mocambo shot. My Epson P700 is a very good printer and I happen to be a good printer myself.

For a near future, once I have met my inexorable oblivion, my filing cabinets will remain for anybody who might be interested. Meanwhile I have stored all (or most) of my important digital camera and phone camera shots in two exterior hard drives. Even though I know digital camera storage cards can deteriorate with time I have them neatly arranged by dates in a box. I never erase my storage cards. I get new ones.

This blog is the result of having looked at the Mocambo photograph this morning.