Portia Winters - & left Colleen Hughes

In that perfect world there were essences.

I have modified my Platonism because of women and cats. My Portland bassist friend Curtis Daily once told me that all cats have in their genes a memory of having been petted by Egyptian pharaohs. My Rosemary and I when one of our cats would die (we had many beginning in 1977, we would immediately adopt a middle-aged cat from the SPCA. We enjoyed the mutual adaptation. We also discovered that somehow the new cat had something of the old cat. I identified that as the essence of being a cat.

Since I began taking photographs of women in Mexico City beginning in 1967 with portraits of my Rosemary and nudes of her in 1969 I have photographed thousands of women.

Here are two that stand out in my mind (besides my Rosemary) of being extremely sure of themselves. The woman on the left, Portia Winters was an ecdysiast that I photographed for a Vancouver business magazine called Equity. The article was called Sex Sells and it was all about the business side of the profession. I took photographs of Winters in the Number 5 Orange dressing room. I may have been one of the few men in Vancouver allowed to take photographs in them. With camera in hand I followed Winters’s routines. I seemed to be invisible to her. In this photograph of her I see a woman sure of herself. She knows who she is and what she is.

The second woman, Colleen Hughes, is a friend who lives in Edmonton. I once photographed her with her baby boy in my tub. The photograph was the back cover of Reader’s Digest. I took many photographs of her including some in Lighthouse Park. Others I took in her house when she was living in Vancouver. This photograph is another example of a woman who has that perfect essence of being a woman.

I would only add that she is the essence of a film noir woman.

My oficina - 9 August 2026

This is what I face when I enter my oficina to scan or to write. The first thing I see on my marvellous new Acer monitor is this photograph of Rosemary and me taken by my Yorkshire-born compadre (godfather of my youngest daughter Hilary) with my Asahi Pentax S-3 at the botanical garden of the University of Mexico in 1968. It is really my favourite photograph of the both of us as the memories behind it fill my heart with joy and melancholy now that she is gone.

Something amazing is that I have the original Kodak colour negatives and they are in good shape. Better still the small drugstore photographs printed all those years ago have not faded.

This new (ish sold to me by my friends of EJ Phone Repair for $140) monitor puts a smile into my face ( until recently that did not happen often). I can see my many photo files with all the little pictures across the screen. Thanks to it I have found many gems that I overlooked with my old Dell CRT monitor.

On the right of this photograph that I took with my Fuji X-E3 there are two cameras. The one in back is the Asahi Pentax S-3 that I bought used at Foto Rudiger on Avenida Venustiano Carranza in Mexico City in 1962. It has become my Sword Excalibur and I am using it a lot with two films. One is Ilford 100 ISO b+w and the other is the long discontinued (many rolls in my fridge) of Kodak Technical Pan which I rate at 50 ISO and is nicely processed in our excellent The Lab.

The other camera is an Exakta VX given to me by a friend Gary Cullen. He said I should have one. I am not sure he is right but then he owns a 1947 Tatra which I believe is the most beautiful car ever made. The Exakta is for left handed people and everything about its design makes it impossible that I will ever understand how to use it. But it has a special memory for me as a similar Exakta, a VXIIA was the camera that Jimmy Stewart used in my most favourite film (after Laura with Gene Tierney) Hitchcock’s Rear Window  with the incomparable Grace Kelly. And below my portrait of the film’s villain, Raymond Burr, in a nice accidental double exposure.

That Wondrous Tatra

Helianthus annuus - 9 August 2026

For me there is a beauty in family traditions. One of them is that every year my daughter Alexandra who lives in Lillooet brings me some of her sunflowers. This year I kept her gift in the pot and did not plant it in the back lane which was part of the tradition. I cut these two spent flowers to scan them. There are many buds in the rest of the plant so more rewards are in store.

It was many years ago that my grandmother and I went to a show in Mexico City of a young Filipino painter. We stood in front of a Mexican huarache and my abuelita told the painter, “That is ugly.” The painter retorted, “Ah, the beauty of ugliness.” I have never forgotten. I have loved ever since the imperfect. This scan of Helianthus annuus is beautiful just like that huarache.

I like the Spanish word for sunflower – girasol. Girar is to turn. So the Spanish word suggests that the flower moves to always face the sun. Julio Cortázar in his great work Rayuela (Hopscotch) write in the beginning about his protagonist Horacio Oliveira who evokes the smile or the way his Lucía (his love interest) in this way:

“Quiero decir que abría el girasol de su boca.”

“I want to say she opened the sunflower of her mouth

Alexandra , Lloyd and My Rosemary in Lillooet

Cachivaches - 8  August 2026

 

¿Por qué librarse de lo que se amontona, como en todas las casas, en el fondo de los cajones? (...) Además, lo que obviamente no sirve siempre me ha interesado mucho. Me gusta de una manera cariñosa lo inacabado, lo mal hecho, aquello que torpemente intenta un pequeño vuelo y cae sin gracia al suelo. Clarice Lispector

Why get rid of stuff that piles up in all homes, in the bottom of drawers?  Besides what obviously is not useful always has peaked m y interest. I like in an affectionate way what is unfinished, badly made, that which uncomfortably attempts a short flight and falls graceless on the floor. My translation

Cachivache se refiere a un objeto roto, viejo o de poco valor. En la obra de Julio Cortázar, este término y concepto reflejan su fascinación por lo cotidiano, lo imperfecto y los pequeños detalles marginales de la vida. Julio Cortázar

The Spanish word "cachivache" refers to an object that is broken or is of little value. In Cortázar’s works, this term and concept reflect his fascination for the everyday stuff, the imperfect and the little marginal details of life. My translation.

My house is full of cachivaches. Many are from my family when I was a little boy but most of it is stuff that Rosemary and Purchased in Mexico like pottery, etc. Perhaps all my cameras are cachivaches that will be worthless to anybody else when I will become one less cachivache in my house as soon as I meet up with my oblivion.

In my scan of some of my wortless objects there is a lovely, very heavy Mexican ashtray, a fake Rollex I purchased I a trip to Hawaii, an Italian switchblade given to me by a communist aunt in 1967 in Buenos Aires, a toy frog that croaks because it has a battery operation, a large cigarette lighter and a wooden box my mother used to store her rings and small jewelry.

I find that with having less and less to do every day that my only respite from bed rottting wit my cat Niña is to write more than one daily blog.

8 August 2026

2.Top right - Hosta 'El Niño'

3. Bottom left - Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha'

4. Middle(one bloom) Gentiana asclepiadea

5. Little flower right Aquilegia caerulea 'Deep Blue & White'

6. Bottom right Eryngium planum 'Blue Glitter'

The Arabs that settled in Spain around 711 AD left a lovely etimological imprint in the Spanish language. Such is the case of – azúl (blue)

Su origen etimológico proviene del árabe clásico lāzawárd, y este a su vez del persa lažvard o laǧvard, vinculado con el nombre de la piedra lapislázuli. RAE

The excellent dictionary of the Spanish language RAE has this on blue, my translation:

Azúl comes from, the classic Arab word lāzawárd and that word originates from the Persian and from there to lažvard o laǧvard whichis close to the Arabic word for lapis lazuli.

The Ukranian/Brazilian author (now dead) Clarice Lispector has this lovely opinion on what blue is:

Para ver el azul miramos el cielo. La tierra es azul para quien la mira desde el cielo. ¿Azul será un color en sí, o una cuestión de distancia? ¿O una cuestión de gran nostalgia? Lo inalcanzable es siempre azul.

To see blue we look at the sky. Our earth is blue for those who see it from the skey. Blue must be what it is or is it a question of distance?  Or is it a question of a great nostalgia? That which cannot be reaches is blue. My translation.

My Rosemary’s favourite colour was blue. I associate blue with cool and that she was. She was elegant in how she dressed but quite warm in our relationship.

That meant we had lots of plants with blue flowers. She tolerated my large collection of hostas and did like my blue ones.

In these two recent scans you can see the blue in my garden yesterday and today.

The more I scan (a relaxing endeavour) the more I don’t understand why more of the people I know in Vancouver don’t do the same.

Hosta 'Rainbow's End' - 7August 2026

Rosenary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - 1969

La muerte me ha golpeado en lo que más amaba, y no he sido capaz de levantarme y devolverle el golpe con el mero acto de volver a vivir.

~ Julio Cortázar

Death has struck me it that which I loved the most, and I have not been capable of picking myself up and return that strike with the mere act of returning to live. My translation

This is my 7000^th blog and some sort of a milestone. I knew days ago that I had to write something a bit out of the ordinary. But all thoughts ended up in knowing I had to write about my loss of Rosemary. She did die on 9 December 2020, but as days pass, it seems that for me my feelings of loss are worse today.

It may have to do with the fact that I am living alone with a female cat surrounded by tactile memories of her. Niña was her cat and her hands stroked her often.

What makes my situation worse is, that with no prospect of work, (and no need for it ,as there is plenty of money in the bank) I live a life in which I feel that my utility to my world is gone. I can really state that what keeps me alive is the knowledge that should I die before Niña, there would be nobody to take care of her.

There is a special fate that few that I know understand. This is that my home is filled with framed portraits of Rosemary on the walls and when I look at them, she is looking back at me as I always wanted eye contact with my subjects and family. She is staring at me with her sad eyes. I know that in our 52 year marriage she gave me stability, attention and love.

I no longer miss the sex. I miss those quiet moments in bed when I could hear her breathing. Come morning, our breakfasts in bed (25 years of them) were the best moments of our lives.

I will soon meet my oblivion, and once there, I will have no feelings or memories for her. Death may have one advantage in the end.

CP Train Station - 7 August 2026

 

Because I am a product of the last century and a photographer from it I have always considered that the Holy Grail of photography is a personal style that can be identified. That last century was of the Irving Penns, Richard Avedons, Philippe Halsmans and only Annie Leibovitz is a survivor.

7 August 2026

The flavour of the month and of many years leading up to this one has been street photography. Because Henri Cartier-Bresson was a pioneer who lived many years in Paris and went to cafés his b+w photographs are instantly recognizable. Of late Vivien Meirs is in ascendance. For people under 30 Dorothea Lange may be an unknown.

7 August 2026

Street photography is the norm because most people now carry that ubiquitous camera that is the cellular phone. I think there is another reason. Post covid pandemic has made people less willing to talk face to face or answer the phone. It is far safer to press the button on you cell phone camera from across the street or to make believe you are looking at it when you press take.

I have always been a portrait photographer and part of the pleasure in being one is to address the person you are going to photograph. But you cannot be a “one trick pony” so I shoot street photographs in Mexico and Argentina (landscapes there, too) but try not to shoot sunsets. I scan my plants, which while it is not photography is it a form of making images.

Because I print lots I had to go to Opus downtown to buy 81/2 by 11 inch plastic sleeves for my prints. Opus on Granville Island had run out.

I decided to take my Fuji X-E3 camera. I took 3 photographs. One of them was for a purpose.

It was when I was a little boy that my grandmother told me that at around 1918 she and her two daughters and son travelled to the Bronx from Manila. I remember how she told me (in Spanish), “We disembarked from our Japanese boat in a place that had mountains and forests. It was called Vancooover.” We went to a large train station and from there we took a train to Montreal and from there to NY City.

In my recent past when I happened to be downtown (I avoid it now) I liked to to the CP Train Station and sit on a bench (most gone now) and imagine my family walking across it.

The panoramic was a shock for me as that cruise liner is huge. It is almost like a floating first class hotel.

The third shot when I saw it I had to go around the block. Am I a street photographer?

No.

Rosemary and her cat Casi-Casi

This blog is 6998. I am already thinking what I will write for the700th.

Because I was in the Argentine Navy as a conscript I like to use nautical terms when I think or talk. There is a fine one in Spanish - a la deriva which translates most disappointingly in English as drifting. The original meaning of l a la deriva – in Spanish is about a ship without a working rudder or with a broken engine. In my Spanish it also has a most important meaning of a person, institution or nation that is drifting without purpose in a confusing state of mind.

At my soon to be 86 I am at –la deriva. I have a sort of easy daily routine that involves feeding my cat Niña, riding my bike, scanning my plants, taking photographs and writing these blogs.

The Spanish language has been bombarded by anglicismos – blog, internet, googliar, whatsappiar,etc.

I like to point out that we have a lovely word for blog in Spanish. It is – bitácora – which means a ship’s log. It is a finer sounding word than the noun but also verb blog.

I started this blog when I had my webpage (alexwaterhousehayward.com) designed in January 2006. I have no recollection who suggested I add a blog to it. I had no idea what a blog was. It took me a few years to figure out it was almost a – Dear Diary.

One aspect of my blog that I did not count on, as I was ignorant, is that my blog is Blogger and Blogger is Google. Because of my many blogs my internet presence is very large and I get requests (good money) for use of my photographs in magazines, newspapers, etc.

Because my memory is fading, if I want to find out in what year I went with Rosemary to Venice or photographed some famous (or not famous) person, I just go to my blog search engine or Google.

While I am rudderless with most of my creative and shared life with my Rosemary, writing this blog somehow ameliorates my confused (Rosemary purposely pronounced that con-few-zed) melancholy.

These three framed photographs of my Rosemary are on my dining room credenza. At least in one of them Rosemary has a nice smile without those sad eyes that were her trademark.

In Emily Dickinson's poetry, physical feet and metrical "feet" (the rhythmic units of a line) merge. She uses feet to explore physical movement, time passing, death, and the internal dance of her own creative mind without formal instruction.

I could not prove the Years had feet – Emily Dickinson

563

I could not prove the Years had feet—

Yet confident they run

Am I, from symptoms that are past

And Series that are done—

I find my feet have further Goals—

I smile upon the Aims

That felt so ample—Yesterday—

Today's—have vaster claims—

I do not doubt the self I was

Was competent to me—

But something awkward in the fit—

Proves that—outgrown—I see—

Since I was a child my mother would tell me that not only had I inherited her very nice legs but also her feet. Until now I can buy shoes that fit perfectly so I have no bunions.

Sometime in the beginning of this century a woman at the Exposure Gallery (a photographic gallery sadly gone) asked me if I had ever photographed feet. I quickly answered that I thought feet were ugly. With a smile she said, “That’s a challenge.” At the gallery I met a beautiful woman who was a jeweller. I wrote about her recently here.

Her Infinite Variety

After that first session we went to Lynn Canyon where I took portraits of her on the water, and yes, her feet.

Because all my negatives are nicely filed I could have re-scanned the negs and put those here. I decided to go to my darkroom roots so I scanned the prints in Fiedler’s files. The first one was badly overexposed (badly printed in fact) and when I corrected I loved all the interesting flaws that have appeared.

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies" Antony and Cleopatra (Act II, Scene II) William Shakespeare

As the portrait photographer that I am I can assert that hundreds of persons have faced my camera since I started taking photographs in Austin, Texas in 1959. As inspiration, I had all the family albums that my mother kept and often showed me.

It is difficult to figure out (unless you quote Shakespeare) the infinite variety that two eyes, one nose, one mouth and two ears are able to display.

This last month, with the use of my newish 28 inch wide Acer monitor, I have been exploring my many files. I am now standardizing their names as some of them have their first name and others their surname. I am now using surname followed by a comma and the first name.

I will be buying exterior hard drives and will be transferring those files, so should my computer do what so many computers eventually do, they will be in a safe place.

Because of my advanced age, I find myself meticulously fine tuning these file images. Some had dust I did not see the first time, others need more contrast or to be darker. When I am gone, these files will be some sort of legacy.

Best of all I am finding with the help of the wide screen, gems that I overlooked with my old Dell CRT monitor.

Case in point for today’s blog are some photographs of jeweller Susan Fiedler. My files (no digital pictures) are in envelopes with no date. I must have taken these in the beginning of this century. I met her at an exhibition at the Exposure Gallery, a photo gallery now sadly gone.

Because I was subjected to pushy magazine art directors and editors to do stuff differently (I am the photographer that I am today because of them), I discovered in Fiedler’s file some photographs that I have no idea how I did them. If asked I doubt I could repeat the look.

As for Susan Fiedler, when she faced my camera, she was my Cleopatra.