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Pedro Meyer - December 1, 2025 |
When I told my journalist friend Maurice Bridge of the project that was going to take me to Mexico City on the first of December he told me, “Alex this will make a good bookend for your career.” I laughed and replied, “This means I can return from Mexico City and die.” He laughed, too. It immediately occurred to me that there is no expression in Spanish for that bookend.
Since I returned at 4:30 in the morning on December 6 I have been in a combination of shell shock about the enormity of Mexico City now and at the same time I have felt lackadaisical about doing anything except lying on my bed with my cats Niño and Niña.
To my horror I forgot to take out the 100 ISO film from my bag when I arrived at the Mexico City airport. I was there to photograph 91 year-old Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer who is almost blind (became so 2 years ago). He is able to discern movement and colours. Meyer told me not to worry about the film. He was right. I took four exposures with my film camera and some with my Fuji X-E3. About the film camera I will write below.
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In 1962 I was living in Mexico City and told myself that I could not be a photographer with only my 1958 purchased in Austin, Texas (B&H NY mail) an East German , Dresden made Pentacon-F SLR. I went to Foto Rudiger on Avenida Venustiano Carranza and found a used black Asahi Pentax S-3 with a 55mm F-2 lens. I decided this was the camera that I would use to take portraits (with a portable studio lighting system that would include a softbox). All my cameras are operational thanks to the fact that Horst Wenzel would repair them here in Vancouver. A couple of weeks before he died last year the shutter button of the Pentax fell out. He repaired it.
I have written before in many of my blogs how my cameras represent to me versions of King Arthur’s Sword Excalibur. With the Pentax I knew I could do no wrong.
Meyer warned me that he would take my photograph. He used a digital (very expensive) Leica. He sent me a portrait via WhatsApp. My niece Mari Teli, (who drove me around in Mexico City and in her hometown of Cuernavaca), told me that the trees behind me were not there. I asked Meyer. His answer was, “Those trees are based on 17 million Canadian trees.” You see, and this is important, this 91 year-old photographer used Artificial Intelligence.
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| Photograph by Pedro Meyer - De3cember 1, 2025 |
Most of my contemporaries in Vancouver really no longer take photographs. For me Meyer is an inspiration to keep going at it. And if I manage to be 91 someday I hope I have his enthusiasm.
