Sucking My Elbow
Friday, November 14, 2025
 | | Rosa 'Westerland' 14 November 2025 |
Since I began in the
summer of 2001 I have amassed over 4000 (if not more) of my plant scans from my
garden. Every time I do one I find myself amazed at its beauty and I have to
quote in my mind what Borges said. For him, a first time kept being a first
time.
Today was a cold grey and
rainy day in which my only smile came from a 45 minute visit by Larry Campbell.
Once he was gone I was back in my doldrums. Sometimes a melancholic moment
produces a thought of “what if I?” After I scanned this-ever-so-lovely Rosa ‘Westerland’
which up until late summer is a brilliant orange, I printed a small version and
included it with the scan (a second scan).
The whole operation
reminds me of telling my grandmother that I was bored and she would suggest, "Alex, chúpate el codo." (Alex, suck your elbow). Because I was a little boy that kept me busy.
And so this operation has kept
me occupied.
My Friend Larry
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Two Coroners
I first met Larry Campbell
years ago when his job was working with stiffs as he was the City Coroner. He then
became mayor and because we were friends he would promote my photography work
including one which was a gallery showing in the concourse of the main branch
of the Vancouver Public Library. He left town and became a senator. He is now
back with an important job in having to see if he can begin to solve the drug
and homeless problem of the Downtown Eastside.
For some
years now I tell people that I am obsolete, redundant, retired and
inconsequential (soon to be a fine country and western song!).
Today I
found out that is not quite the case. I contacted my friend former mayor, Sam
Sullivan to see if he had Campbell’s contact email. He did! I wrote and I received an instant reply. I
told him that we should meet. He suggested tomorrow. I told him he could come
to my house if he was not allergic to my two cats. He quickly replied with a
photograph of his cat.
I will clean
up my house in the morning and get my coffee beans out. I am in heaven!
Bits and Pieces
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
One of the happy moments I
would share with Rosemary by mid-November was getting two catalogues in the
mail. One was the Lee Valley Christmas Catalogue. We would see what interesting
stuff we could buy for our garden. The other was the Bits and Pieces catalogue which had
all kinds of items that we would get for our granddaughters (and have fun doing it) like good jig-saw
puzzles.
Now I have no use for
them. They have been on my kitchen centre table for a few days and I feel sad
to throw them away. By keeping them perhaps those moments I share with Rosemary
would come back. They will not but still I persist.
The cold, and dark rainy
days that are with us I know will become cheerier with Christmas lights. But a
family Christmas is not in the works. I have yet to figure out what I will do
this Christmas. I might think of that ever so British expression to “chin up”.
But I do have a fine
project for the beginning of December. I am going to Mexico City (the new
nomenclature is CDMX) to photograph a photographer friend called Pedro Meyer
who is 90. His marbles are intact but he told me that he is blind. I asked him
if I would photograph him with eyes open, closed or in profile. He answered, “Alex
tienes que hacerlo en las 3 maneras.”
A Toledo Obsession
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
 | | Left - El Greco -Toledo - Right Toledo 1985 |
More Photographs below this text.
My Rosemary had an
adventurous spirit for travel. In 1985 we flew with our daughters to Paris and
from there to Madrid. In Madrid after going to the Prado Museum we rented a car
and drove all the way to Málaga. We stopped in many cities but our favourite
was Toledo that reminded me a bit of Guanajuato in the State of Guanajuato in
Mexico.
Because I had received a
good arts education in my Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas in the late
1950s I told my family that I want to go to the exact spot, if that was
possible where El Greco painted his view of the city. We found it and I took 7 frames with Kodak Black and White Infrared
Film and 6 with Ektachrome slides.
Last week in a frenzy of
obsession I scanned several of the pictures. Some were very dark others were
very light. Using the LAB darkness and lightness tool (it is very elaborate) in
my 22 year-old Photoshop 8, I was able to inkjet print variations that are all
excellent. I am unable these days to convince my photography peers the delight
in combining my negatives and slides of that past century with a modern
Epson scanner. It is the best of both worlds. The inkjet prints would have no rivalry from darkroom prints.
Bonding
Monday, November 10, 2025
 | | Molly Parker & Lynne Stopkevich - March 1997 |
Of late I have pleasantly
noted that my Lillooet daughter Alexandra and my Burnaby daughter Hilary call
each other every day. I call this sisterly bonding. It was only when I was 21
that I finally met a half-brother in Buenos Aires. The closest I have arrived
at the concept of bonding was the very close relationship I had with my wife
Rosemary. It all began when we were married in February 1968 and continued
until she died in Dec 2020.
In 1978 when I had been
doing photography work at Vancouver Magazine I was invited to a monthly reunion
of contributors that was called a pissup. It was in one of them that I met a tall
photographer with a radio voice called James La Bounty. When I asked him what
kind of photography he did he answered, “I do conceptual portraiture.” I thought
he was a pretentious SOB but I soon began to understand what he was talking
about.
At first you faced an art
director who gave you your assignment with some sort of explanation of what was
to be done. This soon came with the questionable improvement of a fax. Then
like magic I would receive faxed manuscripts of the articles I had to
illustrate. It was then when I really began that interesting procedure of
finding a concept for the job at hand.
With Globe and Mail
reporter Christopher Dafow I saw a film called Kissed. After seeing it I had an idea for a
concept. I had actress Molly Parker and director Lynne Stopkevich come to my
studio. I wanted to convey their bonding.
When film director Lynne
Stopkevich and actor Molly Parker walked into my studio on September 24, 2000 I
had only one mission and that was to explain with one photograph my suspicion
that a special bond existed between them. This bond had allowed them to make
Kissed and the then yet-to-be released Suspicious River. Both films conveyed to
me an almost alien point of view. I realized that this disturbing yet
refreshing feeling was that both films were made with a woman’s point of view.
I had been disappointed in the past by the films of American director Katheryn
Bigelow as well as those by Nora Ephron. Molly Parker’s performance in
Suspicious River is so astounding that I wanted to show in a photograph the
invisible bond that must exist between the two women.
No matter what I tried I
wasn’t getting anywhere. I told them to rest. At that point I saw them get
really close. I told them to not move and I shot a Polaroid. I then shot it
with film.
To me the result conveys
that special bonding between women. The concept did not come from thought but
from observing an instant. I wonder what James La Bounty would have done. The photograph in the scan here was not the one that the Globe ran. I had a further concept wich involved going to Mountain View Cemetery as the film Kissed was about burying little animals and from there to a funereal human connection.
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