Rosemary and Rosa 'Queen of Sweden' 19 July 2025

It is obvious to me that when I tell people or my daughters that I cannot stop feeling melancholic about my Rosemary and that I indeed want to feel melancholic. Distractions do not work.

What makes it worse is that everything in my Kits home reminds me of her. When I choose a serrated knife to slice a tomato I know that she purchased all our serrated knives. When I make my breakfast tea and place it on my wicker tray for my breakfast in bed I almost want to make her usual cream of wheat with brown sugar.we had breakfast in bed every day for at least 25 years.

When I look at Niño and Niña, and they stare back at me, are they indicating to me that they miss their mistress?

It is the garden where I associate every plant to Rosemary. Today I noticed an-about-to-open English Rose, Rosa ‘Queen of Sweden’. Its centre was a light pink. The combination of the pink and the surrounding white reminded me of Rosemary and her soft body.  

It is difficult to explain that I miss her and I particularly miss our times together in (I will use the euphemism) our marriage bed.

Gavin Walker & Kate Hammett- Vaughan - Dec 2003

 

Gavin Walker - Four One More Time

After finding out that my friend Gavin Walker has died a week ago I have been soundly affected. I first met him in the late 70s at the Classical Joint. We had a standing sort of joke. I would ask him loudly something like, “What’s the deal with Richard Twardzdik?” His quick answer was, “Alex as far as I know he is still dead.”

Alburquerque Social Swim 

Twardzdik was an unusual jazz pianist with a style that was completely his own. He was as identifiable as Thelonious Monk or Dave Brubeck. Twardzdik died of a heroin overdose when he was 24. My fave tune of his was called Albuquerque Social Swim.

Through the years I would often talk on the phone with Gavin. When he was a taxi driver he often drove a friend of mine, architect Abraham Rogatnick, who had also friended Gavin.

Today I happened, on impulse, to go to my Gavin Walker file in my extensive set of many metal filing cabinets.  I found nothing new. Later I was looking for another file and happened to catch Kate Hammet- Vaughan. And there they were!

I smiled when I saw the photographs which I printed in my Kerrisdale darkroom and are in the file with slides and negatives. It seems that in December 2003 I photographed Kate Hammett-Vaughan with Gavin. Here they are and I am sure that those who see them will smile, too.

Hosta 'Snake Eyes' 17 July 2025

I believe that asymmetry is a snobbish look at visual reality.  Ancient civilizations seemed to be obsessed with its opposite. In most cases so has Detroit. It was the Rambler American that had a touch of asymmetry as its passenger door was larger than the driver’s.

I have written before on the subject. The link is below.

The Beauty of Asymmetry 

Nature Abhors Asymmetry 

My friends of the American Hosta Society eschew asymmetry and when hosta leaves are entered in leaf shows judges eliminate those that are not symmetrical. That changed (a tad) when Hosta ‘Strip Tease’ was introduced. Check a scan in the above link.

My smaller Hosta ‘Snake Eyes’ may be a sport of Strip Tease.

While I was scanning the leaf and flowers I thought about my large collection (I bought them for reasons not just to have a museum) of cameras and came to understand that the only asymmetrical ones are my Nikons and my Leica III-F. I do not believe that their asymmetry in any way affected their operation.

Now with phone photography taking over the world selfies and portraits usually feature faces that are lit the same on both sides. Rembrandt used what is called Rembrandt Lighting which is the result of painting someone close to a window.

In lighting people with chubby faces you light the side of the face that is further away from the camera. The closest side is darkened. This is called narrow lighting. I have a photographer friend who shoots headshots. A few months ago he told me, "Alex my subjects want me to light both sides of their faces equally as if I were using a phone." So asymmetry is now a past in portraiture. 

Hosta 'Joseph' 17 July 2025

 

Because Rosemary was a Master Gardener, we were members of garden societies and our Kerrisdale garden had appeared in Better Homes and Gardens we had frequent visitors to our garden.

Now in my little Kitsilano pad and garden, and with Rosemary gone, few show up for garden visits. There is one advantage to that. It means I can cut whatever flower or flowers I want for scanning with no compunction.

Hosta 'Joseph’ and ordinary dark green hosta is wonderfully floriferous. I cut all the flowering scapes (hosta lingo for stems) so I could scan them. Why? Americans have a rather offensive statement about dogs licking their …. They say, ‘Because they can.”

After years of scanning plants ( I began in 2002) I am always surprised at the beauty of the resulting scan. I can almost predict what it will look like. But surprise is still there.

I do these scans in complete isolation. I am compelled to do them, anyway. Thanks to my ophthalmologist I see very well and I am able to remove all the dust spots on my monitor. The process is fun in my airy oficina.

When I am scanning I don’t feel as much melancholy for my Rosemary as she is almost with me. Because she was appreciative of the little details of her (our) garden she taught me to notice those little things. Most of the members of the American Hosta Society (I am a member) think the host flowers are insignificant. This scan and the many more I have made through the years say they are wrong.

Audrey Hepburn - Late 80s in Vancouver

 In this century, because people can, there is a preponderance of double portraits mostly of actresses that sometimes are underlined, “Remember her? This is what she looks like now. You will gag.”

 For me in that century films were a pleasant escape from reality. I adored Gregory Peck and Grace Kelly. They were in my memory looking at their peak.

So when I faced Audrey Hepburn sometime in the late 80s I made two mistakes. One was to ask her about her former husband Mel Ferrer. She frowned. I then asked her if she had ever had a film partner that was shorter than she was (Hepburn was quite tall when she faced my camera). She said, “Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina.”

My second mistake was that since I did now want to break my memory of how she had been I did not get close with my Mamiya RB-67. Imagine if I had taken a tight portrait of what she looked like then with my heavy duty lights?

And so I can assert that I failed and my only excuse is that I was trying to be well-mannered.

Kira - February 25, 2024

Yesterday after I scanned a white dahlia from my garden I looked up in Google the story of the origins of the plant. I was completely dazzled by the fact that it was a plant that was indigenous to the Aztecs in Mexico. I wrote that had I told myself in the last century that I was going to research dahlias at the Vancouver Public Library I would have been too lazy in the end to go.

The White Dahlia 

What I keep explaining and writing in many of my blogs is that combining the technology of the 20^th century with that of this one will result in astounding results. With many of my photo peers I seem to be trying to sell a sick horse. I am ignored.

Today I want to show the photographs I took of a lovely but mature woman friend of mine called Kira. She posed for me in my little Kitsilano studio on February 25, 2024.

In my little studio I have on the opposite of my middle grey wall a large mirror. I turned my camera in that direction and photographer her in what I saw in the mirror. I used slow shutters and during the exposure I tended to move my camera downwards. In these photographs I am seen on the right.

I also decided to shoot b+w film in my medium format Mamiya RB-67. In the pictures here you can see it on the tripod on the left.

A few days later once The Lab had processed my film I chose one negative.  While I was scanning it I was also pulling it gently towards. I have cropped what might have offended the folks of the “Community Standards”.

I cannot understand why living in a city where we have The Lab (they even process the Ektachrome I like to shoot), Beau Photo (they have the latest lighting equipment which can be bought or rented and a large refrigerator with film that you might not even know exists) and Kerrisdale Cameras with experience experts like Jeff Gin at the North Van store, we do not have more avid photographers.

The Lab 

Beau Photo 

Jeff Gin