Andrew Wyeth & Yours Truly
Saturday, February 07, 2026
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| Rosemary Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward in Morelia, Mexico - late 60s |
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| Farm Road - Andrew Wyeth |
I have
always admired the paintings of NC Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth. I particularly like
the works of Andrew Wyeth because of the relationship he had with his favourite
subject and muse Helga Testorf.
Because I
believe that depending on what you look for in social media their algorithms
are quite smart. Both m Twitter/X and Facebook shower me with photographs of
photographers I admire and such painters as Joaquín Sorolla, Van Gogh and most
recently the Wyeths.
When I
spotted this painting called Farm Road which features Helga Testorf I
immediately connected to a photograph I took of Rosemary many years ago in Morelia,
Mexico. I have no memory of taking it as I have no memory of Rosemary ever
having a braid. I printed the photograph to fit a $4.25 London Drugs frame. The
beauty of being able to scan my negatives with my Epson scanner and then make
inkjets to size means that I can buy cheap frames or nice frames in antique
stores and print to fit them.
What you see
here is pseudo cyanotype. It is not a real one. I have Corel Paint Shop Pro XII
and it has one app button called cyanotype. My cyanotype expert friend, Ralph
Rinke is the only person that can look at my fakes and by how the image sits on
the paper he knows it’s fake.
Whichever
way you look at all this I always harp that what makes us human is our ability
to associate. Thus Wyeth and this amateur have something in common.
Ese Horizonte No Interrumpido de la Pampa Argentina
Friday, February 06, 2026
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| Linda Lorenzo - el tero |
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| El hornero |
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| Avestruz |
Sólo dos veces en mi vida tuve la maravillosa
experiencia de ver el horizonte en 360° sin interrupciones.
A los 9 años en 1951 en Buenos Aires, mis padres me mandaron en
un verano a una estancia en La Pampa. Allí ya andaba a caballo y me gustaba ir
a esa llanura tan argentina para corretear a las avestruces. De vez en cuando
un ombú aparecía y rompía la monotonía (¿qué iba yo a saber?).
La segunda vez ocurrió en el buque ELMA Ría Aguapey en
el cual yo era el único pasajero en camino a la casa de mi mamá en Veracruz,
México. Había cumplido mis dos años en la conscripción obligatoria en la Marina
de Guerra Argentina.
Al estar en alta mar, pude ver ese horizonte del cual
Borges escribió unas poesías y ensayos.
Aquí en mi Vancouver las montañas esconden el
horizonte y sólo en las provincias centrales puede uno ver ese horizonte
mágico. En un viaje al norte de la Provincia de Saskatchewan para enseñar no vi
ese horizonte por las abundantes poblaciones.
Al ir a esa estancia me acuerdo que en el colectivo
que nos llevaba tocaban tangos antiguos. Vi una vacas con las bocas coloradas
como si sangraban. Mi mamá me dijo después que los estancieros habían tenido
una muy buena cosecha de frutillas y querían que subiera el precio si había escasez.
Ahora con mis 83 años me doy cuenta, con algo de
tristeza que no tengo ninguna foto pare ilustrar esta bitácora.
En mi acoso de las avestruces
me topaba con esos lindos teros. De vez en cuando cruzaba alguna estancia y en
los postes podía ver los nidos de barro de los horneros.
Tengo que advertir que sólo viví en la Argentina desde
el 1942 al 1952 y después casi tres años durante mi conscripción. ¡Como soy
algo tonto, hace unos 20 me di cuenta que para tener nostalgia hay que estar en
un lugar que no es el lugar de la nostalgia!
Para vivir esa nostalgia hace unos 20 años una amiga
argentina, Linda Lorenzo, aquí en Vancouver, me posó varios meses para vivir con
la fotografía nuestra nostalgia mutua.
La fotografié come un tero y un hornero.
Y no como una avestruz pero…
The Beauty of Uncertainty
Thursday, February 05, 2026
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| Rosemary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - Mexico City - 1969 |
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| Werner Herzog - March 1996 - Vancouver |
Because I
have joined the 21st century, besides shooting with film cameras, I press the shutter on my two Fujis, an X-E1 and an X-E3. I am often asked what
the difference is between film and digital. I like to answer with one word –
uncertainty.
For photographs taken with film, before the film is
developed, we use that lovely word latent. The undeveloped picture is there
latently until it is brought out by processing.
In that last century, before we had that little screen
behind our cameras that we could look at immediately (and our sitter would ask
to see it), we had Polaroids. My Mamiya RB-67 had a Polaroid back. I often shot
a Polaroid before the “real” thing. Many times my subjects were difficult and
infamous. When that was the case I did not take my Polaroid back so they could
not ask me to see what I was doing.
The Next Big Portrait - Bill Vander Zalm
Luckily I am no longer a magazine, newspaper or annual
report photographer so I need not worry of the conundrum of showing whoever
might now pose for me what my photos look like.
There is another kind of uncertainty that I am
enjoying in this century. I have been placing one negative (or slide) on top of
another similar one on my scanner. I call these scanner negative sandwiches.
When I do these there is that lovely momentary uncertainty on what the scan
will look like.
Here you have two. One sandwich is of my wife Rosemary
and the other of expert–on-everything Werner Herzog.
I like to tell my friends that I was born on August 31st,
1942 and that Herzog was born on the next day. I also enjoy telling them that
Keith Richards was born 18 December 1943. I like those two certain facts. And there is one more. In my files, Herzog's is right next to the one of Audrey Hepburn.
Rosemary's Hellebores & Camellia x williamsii 'Donation'
Wednesday, February 04, 2026
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| 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'.
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| 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.
