A Persisting Style
Saturday, November 07, 2026
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| Tom Lavin 1981 - George Bowering 13 March 2026 |
Powder Blues Band & Orthchromatic FilmBecause I
have written 7096 blogs to date I have understandably forgotten many of them. It
is in those hours when I turn off my bedroom light that some of them suddenly
appear in my memory. A couple of days ago I was thinking of a portrait of a man but I could not remember
his name. After putting a few key words I found the name and photograph . Link above.
The date of
the photograph of Tom Lavin of the Powder Blues Band was circa 1981. Something
clicked in my mind. I figured that his portrait may have been one of the first
in a long line of similar portraits where I got close to my subject (usually
with a 55mm lens) with my camera at eye-level. I used a flash softbox close.
This method became my bread and butter as I would research my subjects before
my sessions and then because I was close with my camera I always found a way of
connecting with them.
Not too long
ago on 13 March 2026 I photographed the first Canadian Poet Laureate, George
Bowering in his home, He was 90. I used a 55mm lens but I broke my own rule and
asked him to smile. His portrait is not as brutal as Lavin’s.
But in October
1994 I faced Polish film director (Red – White- & Blue trilogy) Krzysztof
Kieslowski. I focused my Mamiya RB-67 on his face and then from my camera bag I
took out a deep green filter. Kieslowski
then with a grin told me, “Alex I know what you are doing as I am a
photographer also. The filter will make all my red blemishes darker and you are
going to show me as an older man.”
Then and now
I would never subject this style on any woman. Some things have not changed.
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| Krzysztof Kieslowski - Ocober 1994 |
Nothing Will Help - Requiescat in Pace
Friday, November 06, 2026
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| 7:45PM - 9 December 2020 |
Greek
philosopher Epicurus argued that death is nothing to fear because it is the
complete end of consciousness and sensation.While at
Mexico City College from1962 to 1963 I took every course of philosophy that
Ramón Xirau taught. He began with the pre-Socratics and ended with Sartre. I
was much affected when Xirau told us that Epicurus taught that humans fear pain
but should not fear death as the moment of death is painless.
This was in
my mind when on December 9, 2020 my Rosemary asked, “Am I dying?” I was
speechless. Now 6 years later I tell myself I should have hugged her and told
her, “I am with you and I love you.”
Because
Rosemary was a financial wizard I do not have to worry about making money. I
live alone with a female cat and I spend a lot of time in thought.
Because I
lived in Mexico for 18 years it was unavoidably impossible not to learn how
Mexicans thought of death. Unlike other cultures they do not seek escape from
thoughts of death.
Both my
mother and grandmother are buried in Mexico. I buried my father in Buenos Aires
in 1966 but I did not pay the so-called perpetual tomb rate. Seven years later
his remains were unburied and scattered. Rosemary’s ashes were scattered by our
eldest daughter in her Lillooet Garden. For me all that is problematic. I
remember going with Rosemary to London’s Westminster Abby and stomping my foot
over the tile that read H.G.Wells and loudly saying, “How are you H.G.?” It is
comforting to know that Rosemary would be somewhere in a spot.
Both of us
did not believe we would ever see each other again. There was a sadness we
shared in that. I even wrote a blog “Who Will Go First?” where I indicated that
should I be the first one Rosemary would not be able to open cans and bottles.
There is a
statistic that is with me every day. She died 6 years ago. I am 84, where will
I be when I am 90? I am a firm believes in statistics.
What keeps
me going, all kinds of daily pills suggested by my wellness expert daughter Hilary,
good doctors (cardiologist, ophthalmologist, urologist and rheumatologist) and
my daily bicycle ride is that because I live with a dear 16 yer-old female cat,
Niña I have to be around until she dies. What will happen if she goes first is
something I cannot seem to plan for.
When
Rosemary died, our family and I were waiting downstairs in the living room for
the funeral people to come to take her away. I told myself that because I was a
photographer I had to take the picture. I went upstairs and there was my
Rosemary dead on the bed. On her chest was Niña sleeping. I will never show the
photograph to anybody but my memory of it is a bond I have with Niña when she
cuddles with me, sits on a chair next to mine in my oficina and follows me like
chiclet’s.
In social
media people write, “Happy birthday Gregory Peck, you died 60 years ago.” I
cannot understand that nor do I understand R.I.P. (originally Requiescat in
Pace) as how can one rest in that afterlife if there isn’t one? Would active
people want to rest once dead?
I spend long
minutes trying to feel not feeling, not seeing, not hearing, not tasting, not
talking and other human activities. I believe it is impossible and Epicurus
would simply say, “Alex, don’t worry
about it. Nothing will help.”
Perhaps,
philosophically “nothing will help” is a revelation.
Fall & The Red Wheelbarrow
Thursday, November 05, 2026
For me fall is when I remember Wiliams Carlos Williams’s
poem
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
And more so as I have memories of taking a photograph of our
wheelbarrow in our former Kerrisdale garden in the fall.
In these days of autumn, when weather permits, I go on my bike
for an hour. There is a spot at the end of Musqueam View Street, when it ends on
Point Grey Road, where I take panoramic photographs of a nice view of the city
with the North Shore mountains. Of late I have been taking some fall
photographs. I cannot grasp if these are landscapes or street photographs. For
me it is something not usual with me as I want to always take portraits. But in my mind are the words of Vancouver Magazine art director Chris Dahl, "Alex do it different."
Constantly in my mind is what Chief Leonard George told me
some years ago that his Indigenous people had the tradition that as winter got
closer, if one survived it, you would live for another year. Chief Leonard George
died on 6 December, 2017.
I have a couple of months to go.
Y la Noche Olorosa Como Un Mate Curado - Borges
Wednesday, November 04, 2026
El mate de la bienvenida
De mi papá
que murió en 1966 tengo poco. Tengo su bandera argentina grande que habrá
comprado en los principios de los 30, su mate y su biblia de King James. Tengo
un retrato de él tomado cuando tenía 1 o 2 años en 1902.
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| George Waterhouse Hayward - 1902 |
Of my father, who died in 1966, I have few of his
possessions.
I have a large
Argentine flag and his mate which he may have had beginning in the 30s. I have
his King James Bible and a precious little portrait of him when he was 1or 2 in
1902.
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| Linda Lorenzo |
Tengo 84
años y estoy abrumado por las memorias de mi pasado. Muchas de esas memorias son lindas pero
melancólicas nostalgias.
I am now 84 years old and I am overwhelmed by the memories of my past. Many of these are pleasant, but melancholic
nostalgias.
Hoy decidí
escribir mi nostalgia sobre esa costumbre tan argentina que es tomar el mate.
Today I decided to write of my nostalgia for the Argentine
custom that involves lots of ceremony and that is the mate and how to drink it.
En castellano nunca hay problema en diferenciar la palabra mate para el receptáculo con la acción de tomar un mate o la yerba que es también la yerba mate. Hay muchas
lindas expresiones relacionadas con la de tomar mate. Está la última que toma
un visitante antes de irse – el mate del estribo. La palabra correcta para
preparar un mate es cebar y el que lo hace es el cebador. En una reunión el
mate se pasa en el sentido de las manecillas del reloj. Para invitar a un amigo a tomar un mate se dice, "Vení a mi casa y mateamos."
In our Argentine Spanish (castellano) we never have a problem in differentiating the gourd, el mate with the drink, the mate, There are many lovely expressions related to drinking mate. The
last mate you serve to a visitor translates to – the one you drink before you put your feet on the stirrups of your
horse. To prepare a mate is to cebar
and the person who does it is the cebador
or cebadora. When you pass it around
in a gathering of friends it has to be done clockwise. To invite a friend to share a mate we ask, "Let's matear."
El primer
mate, muy amargo y caliente, se llama el mate del boludo. El cebador de alguna
manera tiene que tomarlo y escupirlo. Los hombres muy hombres nunca le pondrían
azúcar. No es mala educación hacer ruido al chupar lo que queda al final. Al
devolver el mate al cebador, hay que hacerlo con la mano derecha.
The first mate is very hot and bitterly strong. The cebador
must drink it and spit it out. If not this mate if offered to anybody is called
– el mate del boludo – or the mate of
the idiot. It is perfectly acceptable to make a noise when you slurp the last
of it. You return the empty mate with your left hand.
Cuando los
jesuitas llegaron a lo que ahora es el Paraguay en 1607 se asombraron como los
nativos trabajaban sin parar todo el día. Tomaban un líquido verdoso. Al ver
esto los jesuitas promovieron el mate por todas las regiones y esa es la razón
de cómo llegó el mate a la Argentina.
When the Jesuits arrived in 1607 to what today is Paraguay
they were amazed how the Indigenous people worked without stopping all day. They
drank a greenish kind of tea. And it is for that reason that the Jesuits
promoted mate so that today we Argentines drink it.
El nombre
botánico del mate es Ilex paraguariensis.
Muy interante es que esta planta está en la misma familia del arbusto con
frutos colorados que se usa pare decorar en la Navidad en los Estados Unidos y
el Canada – Ilex aquifolium.
Mate’s botanical name is Ilex
paraguariensis. It is interesting that it is in the same family as our
Chrismas holly – Ilex aquifolium.
Los argentinos
se ofenden cuando les digo que la revolución del mate sucedió en el Uruguay.
Sabemos que el agua para el mate nunca debe hervir. Los uruguayos inventaron un
termo y un lindo estuche de cuero para guardar la yerba (y el azúcar). Ya para
los años 70 uno podía ver parejas tomando mate en los parques sin tener el
problema de calentar una pava. En México una pava es una cafetera aún cuando se usa para calentar agua para el té. El cuello de una pava se asemeja al cuello de la pava que comemos cuando nos cansamos del pollo.
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| Mi amigo el artista Juan Manuel Sánchez y su pava |
Argentines are reluctant to accept that the revolution to
drink mate outside one’s home began when they invented a kit, nicely done in
leather, that had a thermos (mate water must never reach a boil) room for the yerba (weed in Spanish and the correct
way of calling the mate) and even sugar. After that one could see young couples
drinking mate in parks. I have visions of old men drinking mate on sidewalks
with a nearby kettle and kerosene stove.In Mexico the Argentine kettle is called a cafetera even if it is used to make tea. The Argentine kettle, a pava is named after the turkey and the resemblance to its neck.
Todos
sabemos que si usamos agua hirviente el mate se llama mate lavado.
We Argentines know that if boiling water is poured into the
mate it will spoil it and it is calle a mate
lavado.
Durante mis
dos años como conscripto en la Marina de Guerra Argentina desayunábamos mate
cocido. La preparación consistía en hervir leche con yerba y azúcar casi toda
la noche. La tomábamos con un pan llamado galleta.
During my two years as a conscript of the Argentine Navy in
1966/67 we drank mate cocido. Early in the morning milk with yerba was boiled
with sugar for hours. It was served with a bread called galleta.
Rara vez
tomo mate solo. Mi nieta Rebecca (que ahora no me da bola poque tiene 29 años)
era la única que tomaba mate conmigo. Ahora preparo mi versión del mate cocido
usando una prensa (French Press). En el microondas caliento leche. A veces
ofrezco mi mate cocido a mis invitados.
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| Rebecca with Pancho - 2016 |
I rarely drink mate from the gourd because this is a social
endeavour. My granddaughter Rebecca now 27 was the only person I could share a
mate. She does not visit my anymore. So I now prepare my version of mate cocido
with a French Press. I heat milk on the side in my microwave. Some of my
visitors drink it and perhaps are too polite to tell me they don’t like it.
¡Como
conocí a Julio Cortázar en 1950 porque era amigo de mi papa, solo uso la yerba
Cruz de Malta que era su favorita. A dos cuadras de mi casa aquí en Vancouver
en el barrio de Kitsilano la venden!
Because I met Julio Cortázar in 1950 as he was a friend of
my father’s, I drink only Cruz de Malta yerba which was his favourite. Here in
my Kitsilano in Vancouver I can buy it two blocks away.
There is a lovely quote by Jorge Luís Borges - y la noche
olorosa como un mate curado - versos catorce
It has to do with breaking in a new mate. Some folks use brandy or other alcohols. I have no idea how my father cured his.
On Women
Tuesday, November 03, 2026
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| Cheri |
Inspired by Susan Sontag
The Essence of a Woman I married my
Rosemary in Mexico City on 8 February 1968. On my whim I asked her to pose nude
for me in 1969. I was a tad conservative so I shot her from the waist up. That
photograph, framed, stares at me from the wall opposite my bed. She stares
because I had my camera at eye level. Most of my portraits are like that.
In 1973 we
drove in our Beetle from Mexico City to San Francisco. I decided I would go
alone to see the film Deep Throat. Whatever I might have thought of the film was
destroyed by two men in front of me loudly munching on popcorn.
When we
moved to Vancouver in 1975, I could not get much work as a photographer. By 1977
I was spending lazy days at Wreck Beach. Rosemary kept telling me I was wasting
my time. It was there were I took my first full nudes. I will even show my
first ever of a woman called April. I used b+w Kodak Infrared film.
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| April Wreck Beach |
By the late
70s and 80s I was taking pictures of most of our city’s exotic dancers
(ecdysiasts is the word I like). I do not think I ever demeaned any of them and
perhaps because of that I was so trusted that I was one of the few men that was
ever allowed to take photographs in their dressing rooms.
People often
ask me how this affected my Rosemary. My only answer is that I never touched
any of them.
Photographing
people (men or women) nude is like artists drawing in studio nude sessions. It
prepares you to know how a body moves. This helps when you photograph them with
clothes on either in fashion or in portraiture. My Rosemary taught me to note
and to photograph hands properly.
As I moved on
to magazine work I did les of this nude stuff except that I was obsessed with
displaying eroticism. I asked many of my subjects to define it. A model for me
was photographer Helmut Newton.
Little by
little the influence of my feminist wife made me retreat from that erotic idea
and I went into unclothed portraiture.
As I moved into the 21s century my photographs became less erotic and
more elegant.
After my
Rosemary died on 9 December 2020, I became less interested in women and today I
can assert that the only woman I am interested is my dead Rosemary. I do not
miss the sex. I miss the quiet moments in bed when we held each other or
walking around the block holding hands.
All the
above changed even more when last year I read Susan Sontag’s posthumous book
(written in 1975) On Women. She writes that old men have character and old
women are ugly. She does not agree with that. I thank the gods above that my
non-plus-ultra favourite actress, Grace Kelly died young enough that there are
no photographs (you will gag when you see what she looks like now) of her
that will ever appear in deprecatory postings in social media.
In the early 80s the exotic dancers of Vancouver formed a sort of union and they held all kind of activities to raise money. One of them were the exotic car washes. I wrote a blog about it (well no writing) and here it is below. I am now looking at them and wondering how I would have tackled those photographs in this century.
Auto Lavado - Car Wash
Una Chiripa
Monday, November 02, 2026
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John Kay
(born Joachim Fritz Krauledat, 12 April 1944) is a German-born Canadian rock
singer, songwriter, and guitarist known as the frontman of Steppenwolf. |
Chiripa –
Chiripada
The above
words are Mexican lingo for luck and luck out. In the early 80s I was doing my
best to stand out with my portraits as competition in Vancouver was fierce. What I had going
for me is that I worked with writer Les Wiseman who had a rock column in Vancouver Magazine called In One Ear. I have always thought that
good music critics have to be snobs. When I started with Wiseman he told me, “Alex
if you don’t like Lou Reed you will not be able to work with me. If you do not
like the heavy metal band Motorhead, forget it.”
One method I
used to compete was to use a portable studio light with a device called a
softbox. To add to this, in my photograph here of John Kay, I took with Kodak
Technical Pan Film (discontinued in 2005) which was the sharpest and finest
grain film ever made. It had sensitivity to red so it rendered skin luminous.
I shot 10
photographs. I showed the contact sheet to Vancouver Magazine art director Rick
Staehling and he picked this one.
Somehow I
believe I must have lucked out with this portrait of John Kay. It is inmediate
and in-your-face.
Este retrato es una de chiripa.
The First Shall Be Last
Sunday, November 01, 2026
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| Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha - 1 November 2026 |
"The
first shall be last and the last shall be first" is a prominent biblical
teaching spoken by Jesus Christ in the New Testament (found in Matthew 19:30,
Matthew 20:16, and Luke 13:30).
My extremely
rare Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f.
pteracantha is the first rose in my garden to bloom. This year it bloomed
on May 1 well ahead of the rest of my roses. Today I noticed that it had one
bloom and further down the stalk a bud. This would suggest that today’s
flower may not be the last one.
It was not until sometime in 1991 that my Rosemary
pushed me to go to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society that I learned (it
took a while) to become a rosarian. This is not a secret sect with funny
handshakes. The term applies to a lover of roses.
Not only did Rosemary urge me (not so gently) into
gardening but she also taught me to use the proper botanical names. This rose’s
proper botanical name is a mouthful.
And now when I see any of my roses in the garden I
finally equate that my Rosemary is also my Rosamaría. How was I to know that
when I first met her on 15 December, 1967 in Mexico City that her name would
connect me with that Peruvian saint, Santa Rosa de Lima, whose feast day in
Argentina was celebrated on August 30th and traditionally it came
with a fierce storm that sometimes cancelled my garden celebration of my birthday
on August 31.
Anybody who might notice details should know that
botanical names are always italicized except when they have a hybrid name which
is contained between single quotes such as Rosa
‘Emily Carr’.
