Tarren

Mujer – Agustín Lara

Mujer, mujer divina,

Tienes el veneno que fascina

En tu mirar.

Mujer, alabastrina,

Eres vibración de sonatina pasional.

Tienes el perfume de un naranjo en flor,

El altivo porte de una majestad.

Sabes de los filtros que hay en el amor

Tienes el hechizo de la liviandad.

La divina magia de un atardecer

Y la maravilla de la inspiración.

Tienes en el ritmo de tu ser

Todo el palpitar de una canción,

Eres la razón de mi existir, mujer.

La divina magia de un atardecer

Y la maravilla de la inspiración.

Tienes en el ritmo de tu ser

Todo el palpitar de una canción,

Eres la razón de mi existir, mujer.

My mother was an early feminist as was my grandmother. When I asked my mother to sew a button for me she said, “You can learn. Do it.” I once complained that her fried egg for me had a broken yolk. I was told to fry my own eggs.

Rosemary took over very well the functions of the male person in a marriage and she handled finances and insisted when she knew that she was dying that we had to make a will. She refused to hem my jeans so at first I did it, then I went to Mark’s Warehouse and bought jeans of the exact length.

All the time this macho man drove a terrible Fiat X-19 or an even worse Maserati Biturbo. But I must clear the air a bit in that this man never grew a moustache, a beard or ever wanted to have motorcycle. I am now very happy with a boring but efficient Chevrolet Cruze.

Because I lived in the golden era of film and music in Mexico, between the mid 50s to their decline when we left for Vancouver in 1975, I have in my head a most romantic view of women.

But there was a problem for male Mexicans in that last century, for them there were two kinds. One, the wife was the mother of your children. If you wanted to have fun then you needed a mistress. These men saw sex activity as two types. For a while Mexican Social Security paid benefits to both wife and mistress.

And then after all the above I think of my good friend Tarren who for me is defined by the lyrics of a song by Agustín Lara, a famous Mexican composer of romantic songs. His song Mujer came to mind as my two cats snuggled beside me tonight and I told myself I had to get up and write this blog.

Isis - November 1990

 

Kodak T-Max 3200

In Spanish when something untoward would happen to me my grandmother would say, “No hay mal que por bien no venga.” That translates literally to, “Nothing bad happens that for a good reason it happens.” In English the equivalent is, “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

The key to consistent photography lies in that very word, consistent. When something unexpected ruins your photograph you can track it back if you have that consistent system.

The original solarized print

 

In photography many a fabulous result has happened because of a mistake in that consistency. I had a Man Ray event in my darkroom work once. My involvement with a darkroom began in 1961 and stopped 8 years ago when Rosemary and I moved from Kerrisdale (I had a darkroom) to Kits where I have an oficina (computer, monitor and scanner).  I print inkjets. The combination of scanning my negatives with my good scanner and the resulting inkjet provides shadow detail that has always been there but that a traditional darkroom could not. 

My Man Ray occurred when I had projected a 35mm negative of a lovely ecdysiast called Isis on to 8x10 photographic paper. I put it into the developer. The image began to appear and somehow for some reason I turned on the darkroom lights.   I turned them off quickly but the “damage” was done and I had a very nice solarized print a la Man Ray.

Because I still teach or try to teach in these blogs I am placing here how it all happened:

1. A scan of the original negative. Because I had her right hand little finger much too close to the edge that was a salient mistake.

2. In the solarized print I had added by edge burning some black to give her little finger some space. This original solarized print is quite light.

3. I scanned that number 2 and with my 22 year-old Photoshop-8 I have darkened the print and added a bit more contrast, etc.

Rosa 'Susan Williams-Ellis' 13 de octubre 2025

 

Cultivo un rosa blanca – José Martí

Cultivo una rosa blanca

en junio como enero

para el amigo sincero

que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca

el corazón con que vivo,

cardo ni ortiga cultivo;

cultivo la rosa blanca.

Tengo 50 rosas antiguas o inglesas en mi pequeño jardín en el barrio de Kitsilano en Vancouver. Ya está empezando a llover como es de costumbre en los inviernos de esta ciudad. Estamos a 10 grados y ya he puesto la calefacción.

¿Quién adivinaría que a estas alturas tendría un rosal en flor. La idea de que una rosa blanca sería más frágil y delicada?  Ese es el caso de esta rosa inglesa de David Austin.

Mi Rosemary falleció hace 5 años. Estuvimos casados 52. La línea de Martí “Y para el cruel que me arranca el corazón con que vivo,” es exactamente lo que siento hoy.

Samantha Rae

Gafas is an early 20th century word for glasses in Spanish

 One of the learning advantages of working as a free-lance photographer for Vancouver Magazine beginning in the late 70s was that art director Rick Staehling never really pigeonholed me into just being a portrait photographer. Once, almost apologetically he assigned me to photograph sewing machines. The helped in making me a tad more humble.

When he assigned me to take photographs of a high-end optical shop on Robson, Optique 2000 I did something I often did in the 80s. I was friends with many ecdysiasts (strippers) and I loved using them as models as they would be paid to not remove their clothes. I remember one of the dancers here. She had very long hair and part of her act was to tease her bum with it. The other dancer was one of my faves even though I have now forgotten her name as she had a short career and disappeared. To me she resembled Gene Tierney.

When Rick saw these photographs he asked me, "Where did you get these models? I have not seen any of them." I told him, "Over a beer I can show you where they work."

While I was never picked to shoot once except once, I believe I wasn’t all that bad at it. 

Artropolis - My Only Fashion Shoot 

No, I have never been to Greece. This was in West Vancouver and it was called Parthenon Place. All that remains is the street name. A Greek gentleman built the Parthenon replica for his wife who was nostalgic for her home land.

Because I read lots of science fiction in the 50s and 60s, in my mind is Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Vancouver now feels like that to me. My Rosemary who died almost five years ago would not recognize the city we lived in since 1975.

Parthenon Place was so beautiful that I took a friend, Theresa Brown, who had an amazing face and took photographs of her. She was the one who took the portrait of me holding a pipe in my left hand and a pewter cup with wine in the other. In another occasion I photographed in colour my friend Anita Roberts. 

Theresa Brown in Parthenon Place 

Anita Roberts in Parthenon Place 

My files are full of these photographs of a vanishing Vancouver. Because I am 83 I am now disdainful of my legacy. I simply do not care what happens to all my photographs.

Like in much part of the world fame in Vancouver only arrives when you are dead. I have pleasant and long phone chats with George Bowering and George McWhirter. Who are they? Bowering was the first Canadian Poet Laureate and McWhirter the first Vancouver Poet Laureate. I could be wrong but somehow along with journalism, poetry and culture is moribund in this city of blue/grey tall condos full of Teslas in their underground parking.