"The straw that broke the camel's back" originates from an old, likely Arabic, proverb regarding the cumulative effect of overloading a camel until a final, tiny weight causes it to collapse. Wikipedia

I never give my views on politics or religion to anybody. If I were to go to that country down south I would not have any problems with admission as they would not be able to find anything damning in my phone that would make them send me back to Canada.

Today I will waver just a tad. Some years ago I went with my 8-year old granddaughter Rebecca to Texas. At the airport we were picked up by my Austin, Texas former-school-friend Howard Houston. On our way to his home he promised a surprise for Rebecca. We were unable to guess. The surprise was a large property that had a camel and a burro.

As stuff happens these days that defines any kind of logic I keep thinking that the followers of George Washington live in a country with an extremely sturdy camel. When will the camel shout “Enough!” and collapse?

As they say down there, "I dunno.”

Bottom left - Rosa 'Westerland' - Right-  Rosa 'Meikaquinz' and top - Rosa 'Dr.Huey' 14 May 2026

 The Death of a Friend & Companion

When my cat Niño died on the morning of the 12^th, I was in shock and awfully sad. I wrote about it and it sort of ameliorated my grief.  His sister, not having any competition for my attention, has been very cuddly with me.

But today that shock became a terrible emptiness in which I see Niño looking at me with those stable eyes and I think, “Why did you leave me?” At the same time I understand he went on a very long walkabout the evening of the 11^th and I kept going around the block calling his name. I wonder if he just wanted to go and die somewhere. But he did come back and provided me with comfort on our bed to the last.

I have been removing black spot leaves from my roses and fiddling around trying to keep busy. Invariably whatever I do makes me remember the absent presence of the love of my life that was my Rosemary.

I saw these two very large (over 5 inches wide) roses, Rosa ‘Westerland’ and a rose that Rosemary never got to see Rosa 'Meikaquinz'. The third rose, not as large is the root stock rose Rosa ‘Dr. Huey’ that rosemary salvaged from our old Kerrisdale garden lane.

The orange Westerland, which I say smells like synthetic apricot jam, was the rose that finally made Rosemary appreciate a colour she hated which was orange. She would have been ambivalent of the pale yellow and odd-named Rosa 'Meikaquinz'.

Scanning my roses in my oficina brings me some peace. But a few days ago on the 10^th and 11Niño was on a high chair next to me as I worked with my computer. He liked to give me company. Only once did he walk on my keyboard and took me hours to get everything back the way it was.

Niño I miss you. You are here in the garden as an absent presence with that of my Rosemary’s.

Niño 13 May 2026

Waiting to Join Rosemary in Oblivion 

My Dear Rosemary,

Both of us know that in our oblivion we will never see each other again. But writing to you today feels almost comforting as you are the only person in my life that understands what it is like to lose our cat Niño.

Rosemary & Niño May 2020

This morning when I woke up, both cats, as usual, were right next to me sleeping. But that was not to be. Niño was dead. He must have died early in the morning as rigor mortis had not set in.

When you were alive in the crazy world we were both living in you were a paragon of stability. You would understand that when Niño stared at me with those intelligent eyes there was stability there, too. No matter what I did during the day, if I had to leave home I had that comforting thought of arriving home to Niño a Niño. It was never quite the same as when you were alive and you would ask me, “Alex, how was your day?”

Through the years we came to the conclusion that the quickest cure to a dead cat was a brand new one. We never got a kitten. We liked the mutual and pleasant task of learning to adapt to each other. But now it is different as Niña is Niño’s twin and I could never get another cat that might not get along with her. We both went to the SPCA to get them. Niña became your cat and Niño was mine. After you died the previously shy Niña competed with Niño for my attention. I now grieve that Niño is gone but with Niña we will share our grief and live will be tolerable.

In my diminishing world of people that I know I now live alone (not quite) with one cat. Today she got on me and we almost had a siesta. She kept smelling the spot where Niño died. I wonder if she knows that her twin brother is dead? I often wondered if they remembered you.

It is paradoxical that I am getting rid of stuff that was Niño’s. I threw away his cancer medicines. But what will I do with his shiny metal eating dish? I took him to the Veterinary Hospital on West Boulevard to be cremated in his wicker basket. What shall I do with it? The basket had a blue towel. Will I launder it and put it away? 

In these last months he would sun himself just about here.

 

Before I left him at the hospital I gave him a big hug and smelled his cattiness.

Our daily night routine will be different. At around 8pm I will give  Niña her treats. Then I will bathe, get into bed and read. It was when I was about to turn off the light that I would get Niño right next to me. He had been ailing for over a month. He seemed to find comfort in my touching him and brushing him.

I will think of that look on his face when I often imagine him saying, “Papi, don’t die before we do. If not, who will take care of us?” With him gone, statistically I believe I will be next.

Rosemary you died on our bed. Niño died on our bed. It is obvious that your almost 84 year-old husband will probably die on it, too. Is that symmetrical? I have written here before, that after you died, when our two daughters and granddaughters were waiting for the funeral service to take you away I knew that I had one obligation. If I was going to call myself a photographer I had to take your last portrait. I went upstairs to find  Niña asleep on your chest. I cried. In my life I have only photographed death twice - you and Niño.

As your portrait on the wall from my bed stares at me, It is now even more obvious that the world that you and I shared for 52 years is breaking up into one that if you were alive we would not want to live with anymore. When I drive in this Vancouver I think, “Rosemary, you would never recognize the city you brought us to in 1975. It is a cold alien place where people now avoid face to face communication."

Six minutes before you died you asked, “Am I dying?” I could not answer. Now I know I have to stay around until Niña goes, even though I might before her. My will to keep living is diminished. Yes, I am dying but not quite yet.

The urn with the ashes of your cat Casi-Casi, are in a pot in our garden. Niño’s will be in a similar urn and will be company to Casi-Casi.

When I turn off the lights tonight there will be for of us. You, Niño, Niña and me. The two of you are strong absent presences of that I loved.

And explanation of the red roses on Niño. Before Rosemary died she often went to our old Kerrisdale garden to see what she could find. One day she brought a  red rose bush and told me it had been growing on the back lane. I told her that we had  never had red roses ever on our back lane. In last century Vancouver purchased roses were not on their own root stock. They were grafted to an old and very sturdy rose called Rosa 'Dr. Huey'. After the rose that was grafted to it, Dr Huey came back. I grows nicely in our garden. This rose's stability exactly mirrors that of Rosemary and my Niño. Henceforth the rose will  my memory of two dead loved ones.

Niña this afternoon 13 May 2026 without Niño

November 1994

Jann of the Ardent Heart 01

Jann of the Ardent Heart 02 
 

My mother, grandmother, my Rosemary and I were all teachers. Once you have taught it is difficult to stop. I am 83 and I believe that I have useful information (at least related to photography and portrait photography) that I would like to impart. But few in this 21^st century, where Rembrandt lighting has disappeared and phones are ubiquitous, seem to be interested.

Perhaps someone reading this just might be interested in why 8x10 glossy photographs were the rage back in that other century.

This can be explained easily with these initials BS and AS. BS stands for Before Scanners (be they flatbed or those non-plus-ultra drum scanners). AS stands for After Scanners.

In that now remote century when newspapers, magazines and photography books or illustrated books were paramount to information and culture, blacks could not be properly reproduced, particularly in newspapers. These publications demanded glossy 8x10 photographs. I can remember my finickity photograph drum drier. The output would feature photographs that had spots, etc. The cure for this was awfully complicated. And so Ilford Photo in England came up with the idea of plastic coated photographic paper. When I used it I applied slight pressure on the wet photograph with a car windshield wiper. I finished it off with a hair dryer.

Once the scanner came into the equation, scanners could reproduce true blacks for publications. It was at about that time that some of us figured out that Ilfospeed Photographic Paper was not archival. Even in files with no light the prints, in spite of having been properly fixed developed a yellow cast full of spots.

And this guy, noticed that some of them were beautiful. They were so amazingly lovely that I have been scanning these prints and printing them as inkjets with archival paper.

An example I am awfully proud of is this 8x10 (not glossy!) of Jann Arden.

Alexandra Norris - Nikon FM-2 with Kodak Tri-X - New Scan 10 May 2026

 Alexandra Norris's fine essay on posing 

A Felicitous Occasion 

The emptiness of living with two cats, getting next to now phone calls and seeing my youngest daughter, at the most, every week and a half, finds me working in the garden, removing the black spot leaves from my roses, scanning my plants and writing my daily blog. This daily blog sometimes is one I may write three times. I have all that leisure time to do it.

Today I was thinking of a class I used to teach at a very good photographic school  (now closed) called Focal Point. It was on 10^th Ave close to UBC. One of my most popular classes was called The Contemporary Portrait Nude. I taught it beginning in 2010 for a couple of years until the school closed.

In one of those classes we had a model that was especially lovely, alert and intelligent. She wrote for me her experience of posing nude for the first time. I will place here (above) two blogs involving her.

Because I was the teacher I rarely took photographs. I did not have a digital camera. With Norris I managed to take some photographs with a Nikon FM-2 and with what soon was to become my favourite digital camera that I use to this day in company with my Fuji X-E1 and X-E3. That fave was and is my iPhoneR3G. It has not had a SIM card for years. I keep it charged at all times as I like to use it lots. Better and newer phones cannot compare to what I can do with the iPhone3G.

I will place here some of those that would not offend those offensive “community standards”.

One revelation that find outstanding is that I have gone again to the photographs on her file in my computer with the use of my 22 year-old Photoshop-8 using a technique I was not aware of in 2010. I open the photograph and immediately go from RGB to LAB in Photoshop. With Lab, any correction I may do with contrast or shadow detail, does not affect the colour. I will place here a photo I took with my Fuji X-E3 of that most important tool in my Photoshop with which I am able to bring out (the detail is always there and is not invented) that all important shadow detail. What I am unable to fix well was the iPhone3G’s inability to handle extreme contrast so the highlights cannot be brought down well.