Topaz (Miss Mew to me)

In a few days, I will be going to an ecdysiast (look it up) reunion that will probably be the last one. It will be attended by women who were in the industry in the late 70s and early 80s. As far as I can tell I am one of four men who are invited.

Reunion - August 2025 - Little Mary Arnold in centre

I went to the reunion last year and I took a group photograph of all the participants. I was thanked for having rustled up an ailing Little Mary Arnold. She died earlier this year.

When my Rosemary, our two daughters and I arrived in Vancouver from Mexico City in 1975 my desired to become a photographer was delayed. My first real job was at the French and English CBC. It was the latter where one of the dancers in the massive variety shows was part of Jim Hibbard’s dance group. Her name was Jackie Colman. She was fantastic. From there she started dancing at the Number 5 club and coincidentally Hibbard was the DJ.

Littlle Mary Arnold

I have many memories of my long involvement with these dancers and how thanks to their patience I became a good glamour photographer and from there to being a portrait photographer much in demand in magazines and newspapers.

I feel I owe lots to these women so I will be delighted to attend the reunion. I will be given the chance to talk about some of my funnier involvements.

Miss Mew playing at the Commodore with her band Two Lovely Children

But here for some facts that to me are most important. When I used to go to the Number 5 (those of us who knew called it The Five) there was one dancer who was barely five feet tall. She was perfectly proportioned. She was a fave because she often danced to that special tune by the Police called Message in a Bottle. One of the times I photographed Sting, he laughed when I told him the story of Little Mary.

Little Mary liked to drink. Leon Brandolini, the original owner of The 5, had to stock extra bottles of Grand Manier.

A little known story about Little Mary is that she was a superb seamstress. Once she had retired she was hired by one of the best modern dancers of our city. Her name was (she now teaches dance) Cori Caulfield. She was damned in having large breasts. Little Mary designed outfits for her that kept them tight to her body and did not move.

I often went with Little Mary to her fave restaurant, La Bodega on Main.

Gary Taylor's

She came to my house 8 years before she died because she wanted me to take a portrait of her which she was going to use to get a city backing of her sewing business. I was most pleasantly surprised how she hit it off with my wife Rosemary.

I want to write about another dancer that was special in my life who like Little Mary is also gone. Her real name was one I will never find out. It started as Kathleen, it became Fleen and then she dance by the name Topaz and I called her Mis Mew. I photographed her many times. She had the loveliest white complexion. But that was not so. One day she attended one of our Thursday lunches at the Railway Club. She came with no makeup and I was surprised at how many freckles she had.

Gary Taylor's

She, a fave dancer Tarren, and another Inga, inspired mt to experiment. Some of the photographs I cannot replicate as I have long forgotten how I did them.

I will finish here with a sad but happy note. In those 80s I had a gallery show that was called Homebodies. I would ring the bell at dancers’ homes and be invited for coffee. I would then look around and decide how I was going to photograph them in a domestic setting.

One day I received a call from Fleen who told me, “Alex just because I now live in that fleebag Hotel Niagra , it does not mean that I cannot be part of your series." I showed up at her room and she had a lovely arrangement in the window behind her. And this was the first and last time I photographed Fleen with nothing on.

Rosa 'Sombreuil' 13 August 2026

The Rose Family – Robert Frost – 1928

The rose is a rose,

And was always a rose.

But the theory now goes

That the apple's a rose,

And the pear is, and so's

The plum, I suppose.

The dear only knows

What will next prove a rose.

You, of course, are a rose -

But were always a rose.

When I found this poem I immediately thought of my Rosemary since she was the one who in 1991 gently pushed me to go to a Vancouver Rose Society meeting at the Van Dusen Garden Flora Hall. I could now not live with roses in my little Kits garden. Her name, to my ears, sounds even more beautiful – Rosamaría.

The name Rosemary comes from the Latin phrase rosmarinus, meaning "dew of the sea" (ros meaning "dew" and marinus meaning "of the sea"). In English, folk etymology later reshaped the sound of the word to blend with the unrelated personal names Rose and Mary.

The white rose here is Rosa ‘Sombreuil’. It has a lovely scent, blooms for months and is a climber.

Rosa ‘Sombreuil’ -1850 by the breeder Français-André Robert. However, there is a modern controversy: the popular large-flowered climbing rose widely sold as 'Sombreuil' in the United States today is a different modern or 20th-century climber introduced around 1951 by Roses of Yesterday and Today.

The terms analog photograpy or capturing a photograph are not in my vocabulary. There seems to be a renaissance in analog (using film with film cameras) photography now but I believe it is only limited to black and white.

My longtime friend Jeff Gin who is the manager of the Lonsdale Kerrisdale Cameras tells me that young (mostly male) under 30 chaps show up at his store for and want their film processed. They ask for 3x4 inch prints. When they come to pick them up Jeff asks them if they want the negatives. They don’t.

I started printing colour negatives and slides around 1979 in my Burnaby darkroom. One day my Rosemary told me, “You have been complaining about your inability to print colour. I have signed you up for tomorrow Monday for a course on the subject at Ampro Photo Workshops.

She helped me improve my career as I could print for magazines overnight when there was a rush for the magazine to go to print the next day.

And most important using the magenta, yellow, red, blue, cyan and green Kodak Color Print Viewing Filter Kit taught me to understand and correct the photographs that I take in colour with my digital camera,

But I must pleasantly add that in Vancouver now I can purchase colour negative film and Kodak Ektachrome in both the 35mm format and 120. Our local The Lab will process it overnight.

To illustrate this blog I have scanned stuff that I have that I find difficult to trash. If I throw it all away it would seem like I am getting rid of an important part of my life.

In the box of  the Veracruz thin cigars I used to smoke I kept my Spotone kit. With these inks and the brushes we would spot (remove white dust spots) from our photographs. Sometimes I had to scrape stuff from the photos and that is why the razor blade is there.

The 3 Kodak manuals were my manuals for many years. They have information on colour temperature, depth of field and lots more. Lastly the blondish woman was called Sherley. We used the negative to calibrate our colour enlargers. Shirley famously was a problem for the very good photographer that Oscar Peterson was. His subjects were black so Shirley was not help. I believe that the term "the colour purple" came from the problem of printing negatives of black people. For years Kodak marketed film made in India that rendered darker complexions better. Some photographers used that film to add a built-in fake sun tan.

Now with my excellent Epson V700 scanner and my Epson P700 colour printer my inkjets are superior to anything I might have done in that last century. They are properly colour balanced thanks to my Rosemary.

I wonder if the analog photography guys will ever warm up to colour?

Sketch by Eduardo Bettencourt

Photographs - Ed Gifford

I like to use the expression above because as a portrait photographer I am almost always behind my camera. I am rarely photographed. My fried, photographer Ed Gifford took my portrait in July and he made also an artistic version of it.

Photograph - Storme Morrison

Storme Morrison took my portrait with my Asahi Pentax S-3 loaded with extremely sharp Kodak Technical Pan (lots in my fridge since the film was discontinued in 2005).

Last year my first purchased camera, 1959 in Austin, Texas, a Pentacon-F stopped working. My friend Gary Cullen made a new shutter for it as he has the black cloth of the shutter. My friend Curtis Daily who lives in Portland, was visiting and said we should test it He took my portrait with Pancho and the camera was loaded with Kodak Ektachrome which is still sold in Vancouver not only in 35 mm but in the 120 medium format. Our local The Lab processed it overnight. They are the only ones who do Ektachrome in all of Canada.

Photograph by Curtis Daily

The drawings were done by my Angola-born friend Eduardo Bettencourt yesterday at our Sylvia Hotel tertulia. He speaks many languages including Spanish. He is a published poet.

Taken by my Welsh Neighbour Ian Galsworthy on my birthday last year.

Rosa 'Gabriel Oak' - 12 August 2026

 

All I could find out about the expression “on the fritz” is that it appeared in use in the US in 1902.

This morning when I turned on my Windows 10 computer to my shock the image on my screen (an early photograph of Rosemary and me) had shifted five inches to the left. The power off button was one of the many things I could not see. I had to turn off the computer at the computer itself.

Thankfully the Chris at EJ Cell PHone Repair, a mere three blocks from my house, repaired it in under three minutes. But fritz kept at it. When I connected all the wires there was nothing on my monitor screen. I called Chris who told me to check on the graphics connection and make sure it was at the bottom and not on the top. Success!

I depend on my computer for three very important actions of my day. I scan my plants, negatives, photographs, and write my blog.

Besides those three activities I feed my cat Niña; feed myself, make my bed, ride my bike and shop at Safeway. All I can say is that is a perfectly monotonous, but pleasant daily routine. I do a lot of thinking. I think about death and I think all the time of my Rosemary.

I have written before how On Language columnist of the NY Times, William Safire told me (I Interviewed him in Seattle) of the concept he called “resistentialism”. He defined it as inanimate objects proving to humans that they too have free will.

Once my system was in good working order I was able to scan my Rosa ‘Gabriel Oak’. If I were 35 years old and needed the money I think I could sell my scanograph prints for good money in local hotels and abroad.

It is just fun to scan. It is part of my routine until fritz intervenes again.

Lisa Milroy

I have been writing Ad infintum about my terrific newish 28-inch wide Acer monitor. I am able to see all the little pictures in my photo files displayed on the large screen. I have noticed gems I had missed. At the same time I am fixing many of them by making them darker and removing little white dust spots I may have missed before. Why am I doing this? When I die all my cameras will be in working order and my two ancient Norman 200B flashes will be just fine. Perhaps I am fixing my files for some sort of posterity.

Today I reached Lisa Milroy’s photographs. I wrote about her here Lisa Milroy.

These photographs seen again show what an unusual beautiful woman she is while at the same time expressing lots of intelligence. Three of the portraits, the grainy ones I took with Kodak Black and White Infrared film. To use it one must attach a deep red filter in front of the lens. While the results show a glowing skin anything that is red shows very light. I believe the Milroy must have had a blue or purple based lipstick.

Because I still use this discontinued film (lots in the fridge) every time I go to London Drugs to buy purple lipstick I am stared at.

I was extremely disturbed when I went to my files (I have one on just women) and I could not find Milroy, Lisa or Lisa Milroy. Then I thought hard and went to my other files and in the M-Files there she was! I shot two rolls of 100ISO film and one of the infrared. I am sure that there are many more gems.

Milroy lives in London and she is an artist and a teacher.

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 10 August 2026

 

Peter Trower

With rue my heart is laden

For golden friends I had,

For many a rose-lipt maiden

And many a lightfoot lad.

 By brooks too broad for leaping

 The lightfoot boys are laid;

 The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

 In fields where roses fade.

A.E. Houseman from LIV A Shropshire Lad

Many of my roses have the faces of people. This English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ has the face of my poet friend Peter Trower, now gone, who was often called the logging poet.

WeMany of us used to meet every Thursday at noon at the Railway Club in the 80s and early 90s. We were a group of photographers, artists, editors, musicians, strippers and, yes, poets like Trower, and Jamie Reid. It was Trower who recommended I read A Shropshire Lad. I did.

This English rose is one of my best. Today it is the only rose in my garden in bloom. One of its most lovely characteristic is the new growth is a deep and dark red.

I miss those two poets as I do Gerry Gilbert and Susan Musgrave who now lives in Masset. My other friend Michael Turner I cannot find a contact number for him. The only poets I have left are the ones I read in books.

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