Recently I wrote a blog in which I illustrated with a lovely photograph of a fully dressed ecdysiast I took in 1982. A well known Vancouver rock singer wrote “no more Pretty Babies”.

The comment made me think. I went into my files and found this calendar I shot in 1989 for an explosives company. I was art directed by Chris Dahl. The woman in the calendar would often dress up as a nurse in mall or other place presentations of the explosives company. She would then pose with people who wanted to be photographed with her.

For most of my life I was firmly part of that 20 century and the negative comment made me think that the calendar I shot was done in the context of how people thought in that century and in particular in 1989. All that has changed.

Now thanks the the Lululemon chap, women wear tight yoga pants that leave little to the imagination. The red carpet appearances of women now barely hide the obvious.

When I drive down Broadway by MacDonald I see very young women from the nearby Kitsilano High School wearing extremely short shorts or skirts revealing what women used to only show when they played professional volleyball. Their tops would have raised eyebrows and the girls would have been sent to the principal's office.

I do not understand this dichotomy where my calendar photograph now would be verboten and all these young girls somehow no longer face dress codes in school.

These last few years I take to heart what my friend Abraham Rogatnick told me three months before he died, “Alex, I am not long for this world. I am glad.”­