A good friend, that calls me almost every day to cheer me up, constantly points out how lucky we both were to be part of that now long gone 20th century. He is absolutely right.
In that century I could go into Vancouver Magazine Editor Malcolm Parry’s office (his door was always open) and say, “Mac I want to do a story on twins that has nothing to do with a pair that both own pink Cadillacs in separate cities. I want my GP to write it and I will photograph twins.” His answer, “Do it.” Then there was that wait of a month to see the article in print. That was a thrill.
By the time I shot the pictures for the Globe and Mail in March 1997 as Vancouver was going to open Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard, my brain had been modified by very good magazine art directors. They were wonderfully pushy. I always did my best not to take conventional photographs.
I came up with the idea of taking a photograph of the billboards, making prints; throwing them into my fireplace and then taking photographs of them.
I cannot imagine in this century doing anything remotely like that.
It was this past week that the Georgia Straight ran a photograph of mine of Tony Ricci. Because I know that the Straight’s weekly photo budget is $60 I did it for free. The writer Mike Usinger and I have a long collaborative history.
Today, one day before the next Straight appears, I walked to a Straight box for a copy. It was almost exciting.
