Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena & my hands

Because as I keep writing that I am a product of the 20th century I cannot let go of the pleasure of printing a photograph and holding it in my hand. While I had to abandon my darkroom when we moved from Kerrisdale to Kitsilano 7 years ago I have an equivalent pleasure in holding my inkjet prints as soon as they emerge from my Epson V700 printer.

Heated Toilet Seat 

Sandwiches without mayonaisse 

That Tactile Experience

I cannot understand why so many of my peers show me their pictures on their phones.

There is a tactility (and a smell, fragrance is a better word) in reading a physical book and not a digital one. I find pleasure even though I can no longer control well my fingers when I write in longhand. I miss the loud noise of typing on my grandmother’s 1920s Remington portable typewriter.

There is tactility akin to that of a shark skin in that hydrangea we had in our former garden that I can never forget.

At night when I turn off the lights my Niño and Niña get really close. I enjoy stroking their fur. Niña’s is only slightly smoother to my touch.

My friend Ralph Rinke, is an expert in cyanotypes. When I show him my versions done with Corel PaintShop Pro 12 he can tell the difference. He says that my fakes have the ink absorbed by the paper while a real cyanotype’s colours are painted on and thus are on the surface of the paper. A classic darkroom print is produced by a gelatine/silver emulsion that floats on the paper. With my current inkjets, the inks are in the paper, and not on the surface. With that out of the way, the pleasure of holding a photograph, whatever its provenance, is most real for me. Seeing van Gogh’s Starry Nights at MOMa with Rosemary in New York City is sort of the same thing. It beats seeing a high resolution image of that painting on my monitor.

Close to the tactile experience is the olfactory one. My mother would smell me behind my ear (I could feel her breath) and she would tell me I had the smell of an Englishman.

Going to the now gone Leo’s Camera on Granville included the smell (how many people are aware of this?) of all the metal cameras on display. The smell of a plastic digital camera cannot compare in my books. Holding my heavy medium format Mamiya RB-67 brings me that singular pleasure of heft and smell.

The loading of film to a camera, the little noises, the smell of the paper backing of medium format film, is another pleasure.

When I pick up film of my local and very good lab The Lab, can anything compare to getting into my car and holding the negatives or uncut slides up by the windshield? Touching them is part of the fun. Opening my Fuji X-E3 jpgs (I never shoot RAW) is not quite as much of a trip.

And I cannot finish here without pointing out how I miss my 52 years of smelling, touching and frolicking in bed with my Rosemary.

Yes, tactility!

Corazón - Der. del lat. cor.

Diccionario de la Real Academia Española

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

By Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain

Jewels

El Angelito 

Legātus

My Spanish dictionary traces the word corazón, heart to the Latin cor. Cor, of course derives from the Greek. One of the most inspiring statements in Latin, from the Roman Catholic Mass (but applies to anything) is sursum corda which can in singular can mean “lift up your heart” or in plural “lift up your hearts”.

My mother would often quote that to me particularly when I felt depressed. When she died I made sure that Sursum Corda was written into the tombstone in Mexico City.

This blog contains a scan of the most valuable family jewel in my possession. I believe that my Rosemary may have worn it once at a Vancouver function and many people were dazzled by it. It consists entirely of little diamonds encrusted onto platinum.

In Spanish there is a lovely word “corazonada” which is much lovelier that its equivalent in English – hunch.

When I was 8 my father had a plainclothes cop called Manrique. When he would come on his frequent visits I could spot the bulky shoulder holster behind his suit coat. One day he gave me a lovely book which I have treasured and kept since, Corazón by Edmundo de Amicis. I wrote about it here.

Some years ago, when I returned from a trip to Buenos Aires I found myself alone in a Toronto, hotel morning knowing I was having a heart attack. That led to me finding my present cardiologist, Victor F. Huckell. A few months before my Rosemary died on 9 December 2020 he called me. He told me, “I understand that you have an appointment to get a right knee replacement. I would advise you cancel it as you will need to take care of your ailing wife.” I took his advice, cancelled and coincidentally I have never had problems with my right knee again.

I have no idea why my scanner has given different colours to the little diamonds. The heart is scanned under my mother's red Mexican rebozo. 

My mother would often tell me that pearls had to be used. They needed to be close to skin or they would lose their sheen. I believe that I just might start wearing some of our jewels that have pearls. Would that include the heart of diamonds? I believe, yes!

Ángel

Del lat. tardío angĕlus, y este del gr. ἄγγελος ángelos; propiamente 'mensajero'.

Diccionario de la Real Academia Española

Angels, in the early morning – Emily Dickinson

94

Angels, in the early morning

May be seen the Dews among,

Stooping — plucking — smiling — flying —

Do the Buds to them belong?

Angels, when the sun is hottest

May be seen the sands among,

Stooping — plucking — sighing — flying —

Parched the flowers they bear along.

I have written about the jewels of my family most recently in this blog (link below):

 Legātus

Today in the morning I knew what I was going to write about today. I fished out my safety deposit box key and went to my bank. I took out this jewel which we called either el angelito or the little angel. While my mother and grandmother had lots of jewels and many that were most valuable, this one was my mother’s favourite. She wore it to most of the functions she ever went to or when she gave parties in our large house in Mexico City in the mid 1950s.

Because when we get curious (that is definitely my problem) to ask about something, the people who can answer the question are long dead. My suspicion is that my grandfather Don Tirso de Irureta Goyena had the little angel made in France for my grandmother, Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena.

I have no idea what will become of this little angel when I meet my oblivion. My daughters don’t go to fancy parties or to concerts, theatre or dance. People now, in Vancouver rarely dress up.

I have thus decided that I shall start dressing up, wearing a tie (I have a lovely collection) and if I wear either a suit or sports jacket I will place the angelito in my lapel.

Legātus

Eight or nine years ago when Rosemary and I still lived in our large  home in Kerrisdale sometimes I would tell her when we would drive to visit our Lillooet, BC daughter Alexandra that I might hire a professional arsonist to burn the house down. She understood the relief we might have had to return and find nothing.

Now with her gone I live alone surrounded by valuable stuff (we lived in Mexico for many years so we have pottery, etc). It weighs me down in my mind.

I am 82 and I can plainly state that the idea of legacy is diminishing to almost nothing. Once I have reached my oblivion I do not care what happens to all my photographs or negatives. Who will have ample wall space to put up all the framed family photographs?

My friend Djun Kim (a digital genius) is in the process of transferring my web page/blog from a company in Texas that handles my domain name and web hosting to one in Vancouver. When I am dead if my daughters want to keep my blog going (6353 before this one) they will have to pay a yearly fee to the company.

Friends tell me I should publish a book. Would it be possible to have a book with at least 12000 pages? Would I want such a book?

No.

I tell people here that a peculiar feature in the memory of our city inhabitants is that we ignore well known people when they are alive to then speak of them eloquently when they are dead. Such is the case (my opinion) of how George Bowering (Canada’s first Poet Laureate, and George McWhirter, Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate) are ignored.

I wrote to a female friend on CBC Radio and suggested she might want to do a story on Don Stewart’s MacLeod Books. She quickly answered that her producers were not interested. I further told her that she could interview me about my photography career while alive or would she wait for me to be dead.

And thus my notion of legacy has thinned.

I first had some knowledge of the term legacy when I was eight years old in Buenos Aires. It happened to be the centenary of famous Argentine patriot General Don José de San Martín and Juan Domingo Perón issued a memorial publication that was given to every child in school in the country. To this day I have treasured it. It has yellowed with age. I read it often.

In the scan there are three articles that I believe when I am dead will have no meaning to those I leave behind. The wooden cross I found on the beach in Veracruz where my mother lived. I converted it as a necklace and gave it to her. The watch (it works perfectly) was given to my mother by my mother. She often told me that it was the only valuable item he ever gave her. The pearls (you might note that they are not perfectly round and are slightly indented) are what my mother called barok (that’s how she pronounced baroque).

Such is this world where black wall phones have disappeared that few now dress up to go to the opera or a party and wear jewels. I have not worn a suit or a tie for at least one year.

I have a box, hidden away in my photo studio where I store these slightly less valuable jewels. Many are called “joyería de fantasía”. My mother and grandmother would go to an avenue called Cabildo in Buenos Aires in search of these not so valuable jewels. The really valuable ones are in a safety deposit box at my bank. My daughters have keys and access. Will they ever wear them? I doubt it.

Part of my childhood upbringing was watching my mother and grandmother open their large jewellery box to select what they were going to wear for that evening’s performance or party. I was always dazzled. They would explain the story behind every one of them.

It saddens me to understand that those memories will die with me. I wonder what memories my two daughters and two granddaughters will have of my Rosemary and me. I will never know.

Because I live in a double duplex the possibility of my personal arson of my digs is out of the question.

Taraxacum officinale - 18 March 2025

Taraxacum officinale & Helleborus x niger 'Honey Hill Joy'

It now seems only yesterday that Rosemary would arrive home from her office when we lived in Kerrisdale and I would tell her that some art director from a good magazine had called me for a job.

This was important as I felt useful. Now in this 21st century when a grandfather is just an old man for his granddaughters and the phone never rings my concept of my utility is all but gone.

The single most important event of the day (weather permitting) is to take my male cat Niño for a walk around the block. I feel useful because I am following in the footsteps of my Rosemary who taught Niño to walk without a leash. We take the same route and in my mind is the instruction from Rosemary, “Alex, don’t shout at Niño when he lingers in some garden. Be patient.”

During these walks, and the one today, Rosemary’s presence is almost tangible to me.

While walking on 8th Ave (a bike lane) I noticed a single Taraxicum officinale (dandelion) was in bloom. I decided that somehow I would find some excuse to scan it. For this weed to be in bloom and the only bloom in my walk with Niño for me was a real harbinger for our coming spring.

I started scanning plants from our Kerrisdale garden in 2001. My original intent was to record with accuracy the status of a plant or flower on the day and time I picked it. I have accumulated 3000 of them and I know that once I am gone there will be no perceived value in them or in my legacy. That is not important. What is important is that I have fun doing the scan and then mating the image with some writing. It is pleasing to me. When some people come for a visit and see a large printed scan on my living room wall they invariably say, “Nice photograph, Alex.” I correct them and tell them that it is a scanograph and that I am a scanographer. They rapidly lose interest and turn around.

I now have to admit that some of my scans have become something that is beyond accuracy and more in the direction of artistic. When I would at one time scan only one type of flower or plant now I mix them. In today’s scan I place that yellow weed with a bloom of Rosemary’s favourite Hellebore which is usually called a Corsican one. A few weeks ago it was very yellow. Today it was greenish. I think that both look lovely together.

In high school I used to marvel at looking through a microscope. Now my Epson V700 scanner is as good as a microscope. When I looked at the back of Taraxacum I saw beauty even there.

I scan my plants in the solitude of my office (sometimes my male cat Niño sits by me and falls asleep). I know that at one time I would have called Rosemary to see the scan on my monitor. She would smile as she would have smiled today at my combination of a very good perennial with a common weed.

As Argentine novelist (and nuclear physicist) Ernesto Sábato wrote:

"La fama es un conjunto de malentendidos, ya se sabe. Es vivir en una vitrina, y para colmo desnudo, porque no hay desnudez más genuina y terrible que la expresión artística, si es auténtica; toda obra de arte es una autobiografía, no en el sentido literal de la palabra, sino en el sentido más profundo y grave: un árbol de Van Gogh es Van Gogh, es su propia y desnuda alma ante nosotros".

 "That fame is a combination of misunderstandings is known. It is to live in a glass showcase, and to make it worse, to be nude, because there is no more genuine nakedness, and terrible, than artistic expression, if it is authentic; all work of art is an autobiography, not in the literal sense, but in the most profound and serious: a Van Gogh tree is Van Gogh, it is his own and naked soul that is before us."

The scans today are a Rosemary. They are Rosemary.

 Agaves & Magueyes in Mexico City

I have a friend who keeps telling me, “Alex you are reiterating yourself.” And yes, I often do. Because I have now written 6358 blogs I forget that I have written about a subject before (and sometimes more than once).

When I went to Mexico City in October of 2023 I was dazzled by the perfect agaves/magueys (magueyes is the plural in Spanish). I wrote a blog about them. Using my 20-year-old Photoshop 8 I colorized them (they were 35 mm b+w film) to their approximate real colour. And I combined those photos with some of my favourite portraits of my granddaughter Rebecca next to a maguey under the dome of the Queen Elizabeth Park.

Today, 23 March 2025(I will put this blog to fill a hole in a recent past), I became obsessed in finding those negatives. I get depressed when I lose negatives. But I found them! I decided I wanted to do what I call scanner negative sandwiches without mayonnaise. I am aware that I could do something similar with the Photoshop app Layers. I simply like the mechanical method of sandwiching and scanning them.