It was in Malcolm Parry’s Vancouver Magazine office that I remember telling him sometime in 1977 that I was fascinated in taking photographs of nude women on Wreck Beach. In his wisdom, Parry just smiled. I wonder now that he is almost 90 what his opinion would be of my journey with female body photography has taken me to. Is there anything beyond today?

One of my first subjects was a delightfully lovely ecdysiast called Shelina. She posed for me at the beach and I even took those photographs with sea spray. Are they clichés?

Some many years later at an ecdysiast reunion at the Number 5 Orange Club, Shelina told me, “Alex, just for you I am now going to dance.” This she did and I will never forget how special I felt.

Then even more years later I contacted Shelina and she invited me to her home. By now she was plainly not going to take any of her clothes off. I took these photographs of her behind a semi-transparent door with the then available Polaroid film.

I like that transition from beginning to end. Is this the end of my efforts to photograph the nude female form? What would Malcolm Parry say?