Hellebores 4 February 2026

 The hellebores ( I can only name three of them) are middle top, Helleborus 'Wedding Crasher', right, niddle yellow, Helleborus 'Wedding Crasher' and bottom right, Helleborus 'Honeymoon Blue'.

 

Camellia x williamsii 'Donation' - 4 February 2026

 My garden that until five years ago used to be our garden is a constant repository of memories of Rosemary that I cannot escape and do not want to escape. If she is not going to be around in bodily form, being with her memories in my head is a distant second best.

Today it was an overwhelming delight of flowers that when nothing blooms in February were out in force. There were five of her hellebores and her most favourite camellia, Camellia x williamsii ‘Donation. This camellia came from our old garden in Kerrisdale.

Because I was a sort of second-best kind of gardener it was Rosemary who insisted something interesting should be noticed all year, even in cold winter months.

Hellebores are not difficult to grow. You do not have to fuss over them as I might with my old roses.

There is one unfortunate fact. I have plant labels for only three of the five hellebores. At one time I would have been most upset. Now I realize that just enjoying them and having some to scan is all I need on a sunny Wednesday evening.

I feel good today as I was able to go on my bike on my hour cycling to Jericho Beach. Then I went to Safeway in that bike and purchased a very thick $35 steak and some red peppers to barbecue. Even though I am an Argentine (and certainly not a vegan) I rarely eat meat these days. It was a feast and I then cut up into little pieces some of what was left and my Niño and Niña enjoyed them.

All in all a fine day that I shared with my cats and with my memory of my Rosemary.

I February 2026

Reloj according to the RAE (Real Academia Española : Del cat. ant. relotge, este del lat. horologĭum 'reloj de arena’, ‘reloj de sol’, ‘clepsidra', y este del gr. ὡρολόγιον hōrológion.

I have written many times about my relationship with time. Here (above) is one of the blogs. And I have also written in repeated time how Jorge Luís Borges wrote that all first times are infinitely repeated as first times.

Today I thought I might add a bit about time and me as I was looking at my watch. In Spanish there are no two individual words watch and clock. Both are reloj (plural relojes) and my wrist watch is a reloj de pulsera. My watch is a Timex (made in the Philippines that I purchased for $50.00 at the Bay in 1986. Since then all I have done to keep it going is to change the battery every two years. I never take it off either when I swim or when I am in my hot tub bath.

The watch today made me remember Brother Cyriac Haden, C.S.C. who taught me algebra and chemistry in the late 50 at St. Edward’s High School in Austin. He had discipline problems so we made his classes probably unhappy for him. In one of his classes it was the one before lunch. I would stare at the large clock behind him and it seemed that time stood still. Such was our treatment of him that when I returned years later to a class reunion I went to the campus Assumption Cemetery and apologized at his grave.

  

Brother Cyriac Haden, C.S.C.

Now in this century I wake up early to fed my two cats and to make my breakfast-in-bed on a tray. I do stuff during the day (nothing important) and before I know it I am turning off the light to sleep. I am wondering if I can change this or if I want to change this speeding of time.

Brother Cyriac might have some ideas.

Rosemary and Niña after she died  December 2020

When my Rosemary died on 9 December 2020 we were waiting for the funeral people to turn up. It was then when I decided that I was compelled to take the most difficult photograph of my life because I was a photographer. I went upstairs. Rosemary was dead on our bed with our female cat Niña on her chest. I told myself that nobody was ever going to see that photograph.

Today 31 January, 2026 I thought that perhaps I should look at the photograph. I went to my Family files and I did not find it. Perhaps it is in our Cats - All our Cats file. It was not there. There were many photographs of Rosemary’s hands once she had died but not the one I was looking for.

When I place my Fuji X-E3 photographs into my files they have a Fuji number. Once I open the photograph, size it and then name it then I can use my search tool to find it. That was the case. I looked for the unnamed files and found that I had taken two photographs. I size and fixed one of them which then matched the image I had seen before I pressed my camera’s shutter.

I have found the photograph and the extra one. Will anybody ever see it besides me?

29 January 2026

 Pleasure in Failure

Today 29 January 2026 I managed to inform the Telus people by talking to a pleasant man from Guatemala that I had a new credit card to replace the one that is inspiring February 1st. I managed to pay (in person) my house insurance. After that I came home and settled on the bed with my two cats. I stared at the ceiling and did some thinking.

That thinking involves my inability to accept after Rosemary’s death on 9 December 2020 that she is not with me occupying her side of the bed. Everything in the house, the dishware, the pictures on the wall, what we bought when we were in Mexico all associate my thoughts with her. When Niña and Niña stare at me I immediately remember how she cuddled them. They connect me to her.

It would seem that my association and grief is not going to fade. This is why I decided to scan these hosta leaves on which I had placed a b+w transparency of Rosemary with Alexandra between glass and exposed it all to summer sun for 4 hours. I learned this from my friend Ralph Rinke. He did warn me that the result of UV light reacting with chlorophyll was not a permanent. I immediately scanned the results, printed them and then framed them with UV protection glass.

I saw these faded hosta leaves. The action of scanning them and seeing them as they are I believe prepares me for my eventual (soon perhaps) fading from this world where I will then join Rosemary in oblivion. Both she and I knew we would never see each other again.

Rosemary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - 1969

 For the First Time Again

I married my Rosemary on February 8th, 1968 in Coyoacán, México. I had met her not quite two months before on December 15th 1967.

In early 1969 I photographed her nude with my Asahi Pentax S-3 and a 55mm f-2 lens. I did not quite know what I was doing but I did well. I did not photograph her below the waist. I was conservative, ashamed to have even asked. That was the last time that I photographed Rosemary nude. Then by the time we arrived in Vancouver I 1975 I started taking nude photos on Wreck Beach and then scores of exotic dancers and by now, 28 January, 2026 I may have over 600 women in my files.

Unless you are a photographer of that old school (analog they call it) you might not understand the level of intimacy in being in a dark room, projecting the nude image on paper and then seeing it emerge in the developer tray.

If you are part of the new school (digital it is called and I am also there now) you might understand the extra level of intimacy when you have the image enlarged in your monitor and you remove blemishes, dust and control your contrast. You see in a person’s face something that might not be equalled except in bed.

Scanning the picture you see here of my Rosemary, this portrait photographer somehow, upon working on it, it almost seems like she is there in the viewfinder of my Pentax. She never did talk much so I cannot hear her voice. I just keep looking at the fact, that in spite of her almost smile, she still has that sad look that my Rosemary always had (look into blog link above).

I insist on harping over and over that Jorge Luís Borges writes that first times are constantly being repeated as first times.

I have one regret. Why did I not photograph this beauty nude more than once?

That is a regret I have to live with for a little while longer.

Inanimate objects do not have free will. Only humans and animals have it. I don’t quite agree. A few months ago in a shoot in my piano room my Fuji X-E3 refused to take pictures. It would not click. I then read a notice that said, “Need to pair with your phone.” To me that proves that these inanimate objects (many are my cameras) go their own way because they can.

Where does the weird free-will come from? The major reason is that the people that design these digital cameras, computers, scanners, etc never have to use them.

When I have problems opening bottles or packages I often think, “The chap that designed this should be subjected to opening them for a whole day.”

In my past life as a magazine photographer I was aware of Patterson’s Law. Patterson said that Murphy was an optimist. This meant that for all my assignments I took two of everything.

This past few weeks I had three film cameras with film. One of them was loaded with colour negative film. When I had the rolls processed by The Lab one of the rolls of Kodak Plus-X which was exposed to X-ray when I went to Mexico City on this past December had a strip of odd pictures. One of them is the one you see here. I have no idea what it is or when I shot it.

But I like it. Perhaps Patterson and Murphy combined forces to make me smile.