My Heart is Laden
Thursday, September 03, 2026
 | | Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad'' & Peter Trower - 3 September 2026 |
With Rue My
Heart is Laden – A Shropshire Lad - A.E. Housman 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.
In the 80s and early 90s a group of us (writers,
editors, photographers, artists, poets,
strippers, novelists, etc) would meet for lunch at the Railway Club every
Thursday. Such was for me the importance of this gathering that I tried to avoid
accepting free-lance jobs that would interfere.
We had four poets that often attended; they were Peter
Trower, Gerry Gilbert, Evelyn Lau and Jamie Reid. Reid affirmed he was a member
of the Canadian Communist Party.
Peter Trower was often called our Logging Poet. It was
he who introduced me to A.E. Housman and particularly his A Shropshire Lad.
In my rose garden in today’s date, 3 September, 2026
only one rose is in bloom. It is in my back lane garden. It is an English Rose,
thus it is remontant. This means that it blooms more than once. In many respects
it is one of two or three of my best roses. It is fragrant and one of its lovely
characteristics is that its new leaves are bright dark red.
Chick Snipper & Slab
Tuesday, September 01, 2026
 | | Chick Snipper & Tara Cheyenne Freidenberg |
When
journalism was alive and well in Vancouver in that last century and in a bit of
this one I was present to photograph many activities and people in this city. In
many respects I may be one of the last witnesses now that I am 84.
Social media
is full of people acknowledging the death on August 25 of choreographer Chick
Snipper. I looked in my dance files and I did not find her. I put her name into
Google and was rewarded with a photograph I took for the Georgia Straight of
Snipper with dancer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg.
I distinctly
remember having gone to see Snipper’s Slab in February 2003. In my files I had
had Slab. It seems that I never wrote a blog about it as I did not begin my
blog until 2006.
I am now happy to place here my witnessing of Slab. At the time, it was a shocking
performance for Vancouver as the three dancers did not wear anything. It was
all there to see it. Somehow I managed to take 9 photographs were nothing is
showing to offend those keen on community standards.
I looked at
the photographs again and suddenly I noticed that they were all taken with my unwieldy and
heavy medium format Mamiya RB-67. I also noticed the tile floor of my studio.
Conclusion? The dancers came to my studio, I lit them and they posed sans
private parts.
Not Artificial Intelligence
Monday, August 31, 2026
 | | Kira - 25 January 2024 |
Artificial Intelligence in Photography - My Take
When I
combine the photographic technology of the last century with this one’s I find
that the results can be cutting edge (does anybody use that expression
anymore?). I have no patience for artificial intelligence and at my age of 84,
happily I will not be around when it takes over the world.I believe
that when Photoshop came into being in February 19, 1990 and a penguin could be
placed in the Sahara Desert that was the dawn of AI. At that time only a
Polaroid print could be trusted as being an authentic reproduction of
something.
I do
interesting effects with my Epson V700 scanner with the sandwiching of two or
more negatives or slides. I call them “scanner negative sandwiches without mayonnaise”
 | | Negative sandwich of Timothy and Tim Turner - twins |
The advent
of my use of digital cameras (a Fuji X-E1 and X-E3) has brought the instant
look and possibility of using slow shutters. This works beautifully with dance
and, so I have discovered, in my studio. Some of my first experiments involved
an ex student from Vanarts (I taught there at one time) who more recently posed
for me in my little Kitsilano studio.  | | Béatrice Larrivée |
The smallish
room has a grey wall where I like to position my subjects. On the opposite wall
I have a large Ikea mirror. I like to take my photographs by pointing my camera
at the mirror. In this way I appear in the photograph. I call this shaving the
barber myself.
The idea
that a Polaroid (and now I have many
boxes of Fuji Instant Film which I call Fujiroid) I find that while I can
manipulate the peels the results are not AI.
Before the appearance of the scanner we photographers who used Polaroids (in my case with my medium format Mamiya RB-67) we would throw the peels away. Once we realized we could scan them, the results were marvelous. More recently I discovered that if I placed the peel face down on my kitchen marble top I could bleach the black backing and magically I would have a negative. I then scan the negative and reverse it in Photoshop. Above is the result of scanned and reversed Fujiroid peel. Why use AI? Not me!
Four Books & One More
Sunday, August 30, 2026
 | | The books in my guest bathroom |
First Paragraphs
George Bowering - The Great Contrarian
I have a
guest bathroom on the ground floor not far from the kitchen. In it proudly
display four books. They are one on top of the other. All four have influenced
my life for the better. I will put links below to what I have written about
them.
But most
important is the first paragraph of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I think it is the most famous first paragraph of any
book from that 20th century.
The sky
above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Jane Rule’s first
paragraph (part of it):
Writing an
autobiography may be a positive way of taking my own life.
George
Bowering – Canada’s first Poet Laureate writes on the opposite side of my
portrait of him:
Look at the photograph. Look at the
man in the photograph. Well there isn’t one. You are looking at a small
two-dimensional something.
Harold Bloom
in his book halfway through his photograph:
We read not only because we cannot
know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to
diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all
the sorrows of familial and passional life.
That Bloom
paragraph defines my situation since my Rosemary died 6 years ago. I feel my
family has fragmented and so many of my friends are now dead as I am 84.
On a more
positive bent, last week I went to eat at Nando’s on 41st(opposite
Kerrisdale Cameras) with my daughter. I passed by Hager books and found this Ian
Rankin pocket book that in many ways defines my present life. His Inspecter
Rebus has retired and is no longer a policeman. He is depressed.
A positive
bent? Yes! I been unable to read any books of late. I just stare at the ceiling
with my female cat Niña by my side and I seem to turn off the lights earlier
every evening. Not any more as I am reading at least one chapter of Rankin’s
novel. Today I passed by Hager books and found another Rebus novel.
Yes books
can have a powerful influence.
Ahead of My Birthday
Saturday, August 29, 2026
 | | Jorge Alejandro Waterhouse-Hayward - 29 August 2026 |
Traditionally
I take a self-portrait on my birthday, 31 August. My birthday has always been a
complex problem.
My Argentine
birth certificates states that I was born April 18 1943. All my documents have
that date. To make it even worse my name in all of them is Jorge Alejandro
Waterhouse-Hayward. My mother explained, and after all these years I do not
think it is the truth, that my father forgot to register me when I was born.
Here in
Vancouver I go by the name of Alex. I am very careful when I get phoned calls
and they want to reach Jorge which they mispronounce jorgie and not horhe.
Today I
decided I would take my self portrait (I hate the word selfie) because it is a
lazy Saturday. My two daughters will celebrate my birthday on Monday so I will
have photographs for whatever blog I write on that day.
Today I
figured I could take a self-portrait unlike the ones I have done previously. I
connected my focusing spotlight to my ancient Dynalite flash system. I attached
an adapter to my Fuji X-E3 camera so I could use it on my large Manfrotto
tripod I bought in 1978.
Few know
that if you connect a high powered flash unit to a digital camera you can burn
its insides unless you use a safesync device. It is in my scan here. In this
scan is my metal venetian blind gobo (go between). And, lastly, the long rubber
bulb so that I could face my camera and take the picture. Those who have film
cameras and digital cameras must know that the B on the shutter dial stands for
bulb.
I am not
going to worry about thinking how to take my self portrait next year. I am
going to be 84 this year. I might not be around to take another one.
My First Blush
Friday, August 28, 2026
 | | Hosta 'First Blush' 31 August 2026 |
The Primal Urge
My memory,
because I am an old man of 84, fails me consistently particularly with the
names of people. And yet my memory is good for important events in my life.
There is one that came to me today (31 August, my birthday) when I saw the
flower of my Host ‘First Blush’. Because I am filling holes for missing blogs
in my recent past as I have been lax this blog is not going to be posted today.
I remember
that I was 9 years old when I first felt myself blushing. My mother taught at
the American High School in Buenos Aires. It was a lovely old building right
next to the Belgrano R train station. She had friends in the American Embassy.
We were the first in our Coghlan neighbourhood to have a refrigerator in 1950.
Until then we would buy ice from the hielero
who brought large chunks of ice I his horse-drawn cart.
One day the
9 year-old daughter of one of my mother’s school friends came for a visit. I
remember that the girl was blonde and very pretty. She faced me and asked, “Do you want to see it?” She pointed at her
crotch and before I could answer her skirt and panties were down and I saw my
first outer genitalia.
I blushed. I
do not remember anything that may have happened after.
The hosta
you see here is called Hosta ‘First
Blush’. The name is associated with the fact that hosta hybridizers have been
bringing reds up the scapes (a hosta leaf stem) and little by little into the
actual leaf.
I like the
Spanish word for blush which is sonrosar.
Rosar alludes to a rose.
Blue and Green
Thursday, August 27, 2026
 |
Hosta 'First Frost' 30 August 2026 |
 | | Suzy |
The blue coating on hosta leaves is
called a waxy bloom or epicuticular wax, and the physical condition of having
this powdery, grayish-blue waxy covering is described as being glaucous.This
layer is not made of blue pigment. Instead, microscopic structures in the wax
scatter light—specifically reflecting blue wavelengths—which creates the
optical illusion of a blue color over the green leaf underneath.
I have been
lax in writing blog. I am no filling holes. While today is 30 August, 2026 I
will be placing it for August 26 even though the scan of Hosta ‘First Frost’ is
one I did today.
After my
daily bike ride as I was about to open my front door I noticed the blueness of
the hosta. Because it is usually in the shade the blue colour has persisted and
the overcast sky which projects more UV light makes the leaf that much bluer.
I
immediately thought of that sad Miles Davis compostion, Blue and Green from his
Kind of Blue album. The song has a special although melancholic connection with
me.
In 1966
while I was in the Argentine Navy as a conscript I had an Argentine girlfriend
called Suzy Bornstein. She thought I was uncouth and uncultured. She took me to
see Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, insisted I see the film Help! and then exposed
me to a strange Japanese film called The Woman of the Dunes.
I was
staying at a pension run by a retired submarine officer of the German Navy of
WWII. One rainy and cold Buenos Aires winter he told me that Suzy was on the
phone. “Alex don’t ever call me back. I
am leaving you for the first violinist of the Teatro Colón Symphony Orchestra.
You will never amount to anything. Goodbye.”
I became
horribly depressed but discovered that the trick was to hit bottom as then
going up was the only option. So I listened in my portable record player to
Astor Piazzolla and the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. I would repeat over and
over Blue and Green.
In 1987 I
returned to Buenos Aires. I rang the bell on Susy’s door. When she opened it
she said, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
She died of cancer 3 months later.
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