Katherine Blackwell - 15 July 2026 - Severe underexposure with Fuji X-E3

Few know in this century of the astounding influence that the invention of the flatbed scanner in that last century.

Scanned Fuji Instant Film peel

We in Vancouver all know the marvelous talent of photographer Fred Herzog. In that 20^th century he would invite us to his house and project his lovely Kodachromes on a large projection screen. Since we his friends were all photographers we despaired in knowing that the projections could never also become colour prints. Dark room techniques for printing Ektachromes and Kodachromes did not do justice in either sharpness or the quality of their colour. It all had to wait for that scanner and the resulting invention of inkjet print (originally called gicleés).

Herzog’s first show at the Vancouver Art Gallery showed his talent in the brilliant early inkjet prints.

My fellow photographers, most of them, do not have or use a scanner. With my Epson V-700 and Epson P700 printer I print inkjets almost every day. Many are of old negatives (and new ones) and old slides (and new ones). Their quality is outstanding.

Because I still have many boxes of Fuji Instant Film for my Mamiya RB-67 I like to shoot it often. With my scanner I am able to scan not only the prints but also the peels that we photographers used to throw away before the appearance of scanners.

I believe that the conjunction of the photographic techniques of that past twentieth combined with the technology of this one produce what to me the appearance (only appearance?) of cutting edge imaging. I looked up the etymology of cutting edge and it came into use in relation to effective plows in the 19^th.

I am placing here my images which I believe at least look like cutting edge. There is nothing like sitting at my oficina computer, with the scanner on one side to make them.

Another technique I have developed is the intended underexposure with my Fuji X-E3 camera. The results are dramatic.

Ella - Fujiroid peel scanned

Ella - underexposed Fuji X-E3

16 July 2026

Rosa 'Bathsheba' 16 July 2026

Every day and every moment of my life since my Rosemary died on 9 December 2020, I feel grateful for all she brought into my life. I like the Spanish version of grateful which is agradecido. It translates I am pleased (by what she did).

I am about to be 84 and I have no worries. Because I lived in Mexico for many years I can assert without any melancholy that I am waiting to die. Meanwhile I am kept from day to day with the order and and routine that I experience in my Vancouver, Canada.

Thanks to Rosemary’s financial acumen I have no money problems. My little Kits home is in perfect shape. Everything works and I can even boast of a Jacuzzi bathtub for relieving my arthritis and a heated toilet seat for my frequent nigh time visits.

What would be the connection between the dramatic view of Vancouver, one I take almost every day on my bike route to Jericho Beach and this lovely English Rose, Rosa ‘Bathsheba’?

Rosemary’s interest in gardening with her gentle (not always) prodding enabled me to add to my daily routine the scanning of my plants and roses. While others may not think so, I believe that my scanned plant prints are art so that would make me an artist.

While I was a successful photographer in my many years in Vancouver since we arrived in 1975 from Mexico City, I was more so because of my portraits. My portraits are good because Rosemary taught me the importance of hands in them.

Not having to worry about political instability here in Canada is an added bonus to my life.

Rosemary is singly responsible for my daily unencumbered pleasant routine.

I also remember Rosemary when her former cat, Niña, whom she was very close to now lies on top of me. She reminds me of the gently warmth that was a signature essence of Rosemary.

Estoy agradecido por lo que me dió.

Tarren

In spite of my advanced old age I have exciting events happening in my life. Tomorrow I will be taking photographs of a tall, blonde woman whose mother was a well-known exotic dancer in the late 70s. It seems that when her mother died and the woman looked into her diary it was only then that she found out of her mother’s former occupation.

She asked me, “Alex I want you to photograph me as if I were my mother.”

It is obvious that I cannot go back to the late 70s and 80s when I photographed most of the city’s ecdysiasts. Somehow in my photographs I have to include how my concept of women has changed. In the 80s and 90s I was obsessed with conveying my idea of what I found erotic. In some few cases the women I photographed did tell me what they thought was erotic.

Am I to shoot for the erotic tomorrow? My idea of what is erotic has vanished. The only woman I am interested in is my Rosemary who died December 9, 2020. What I especially miss are those quiet and gentle moments we shared in our bed.

This blog I wrote yesterday might convey how without knowing I did that in the 90s.

El Baile de las Sábanas Blancas

Because I shoot film and digital I will be using multiple cameras in various formats. One of my fave digital cameras is my functioning (with no sim card) iPhone3G.

There is no doubt that this about-to-be 84 old man is one very lucky old man.

The Ektachrome illustrating this blog is of my fave ecdysiast ever. She is Tarren. We communicate to this day and I have photographed her until recently. This picture taken sometime in the late 70s is the first photograph that I took of a dancer to be published (in Vancouver Magazine). I have no memory on how it happened. I still have the Mexican 8-sided mirror. That will be my first shot tomoroow.

These days I keep repeating what a friend tells me over and over, “Alex, you and I won the cosmic lottery in having been born and worked in the past century."

It what to me is the age of pornography in this 21^st century I had a curious and most pleasant situation in July/August 1993. In those days we (writers, photographers, journalists, designers, ecdysiasts, etc) would meet for lunch at noon on Thursdays at the Railway Club. There was this lovely peroxide blonde who would sit alone on an ancillary table. We all wondered who she was. One day I rustled up enough nerve and I went up to her and said, “My name is Alex, I am a photographer and I would like to photograph you nude.” Her answer was succinct, “Sure, when do you want to do it? What is your phone number?”

When she arrived at my Robson corner with Granville studio (the Farmer Building) she took all her clothes off and I was shocked to note that she had had a breast removed.

Somehow in all my photographs I never showed any breast or the little bits that get you into trouble in this century.

One of the photographs became one of my favourite ever photographs. She was on a white bed sheet on m psychiatric couch. I just photographed her lovely legs and just a bit more.

When I was a little boy my mother would say to me, “Alex, es hora del baile de las sábanas blancas.” That translates to, “Alex it is time for the dance of the white sheets.” And to bed I went.

The other photos here to me represent one of  best moments of genuine inspiration.

Top left - Rosa 'Emily Carr' - right - Rosa 'Benjamin Britten' below both l Rosa 'Gabriel Oak' 13 July 2026

As a little boy my father always spoke to me in English. In bed in the late afternoon we would sing together My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean and Onwards Christian Soldiers. He also read me stories.

When my grandmother read stories to me they were always in her impeccable Castilian. Once finished she would say, “Colorín colarado este cuento se ha acabado.” It is pretty well difficult and what it meant was,“this story is over.”

Since I began scanning the plants in my garden in 2001 I have accumulated thousands. I can safely say that that story is not over and since colorado in Spanish is a synonym for red, my grandmother's refrain is appropriate for this scan of three red roses.

Colorín colorado este cuento NO se ha acabado.

Madeleine Morris

My Kits house has no more room for framed pictures on the wall. Most of them are family portraits. Because as a portrait photographer I always wanted unsmiling eye contact, I am constantly haunted by their stares starting in my bedroom, the hallways, the kitchen, the living room, the dining room and the guest room.

Every time I look at one of them I am like Marcel  Proust dipping a madeleine into tea. I am overwhelmed by how it was I took the portrait and what I indicated to my subjects what they should do.

These days, with my newish 28 inch Acer monitor, I am browsing through my extensive files both in my computer and in my metal negative and slide files inside my 7 metal cabinets with four drawers each.

Today I explored that of Morris, Madeleine whom I photographed for many years. In the file I found this little deteriorated  3x5 inch print. I do not remember why I printed it. I found the yellowing beautiful. The yellowing happened because the glossy, plastic coated Ilford paper was not archival. The paper was manufactured to satisfy the pre-scanner ability of the paper to dry glossy without having to use those complicated glossy making dryers (I had one!). Glossy 8x10s were the only way blacks were reproduced as blacks in magazines and newspapers. The scanner made the paper irrelevant.

I call the yellowing Ilford Degeneration.

This print is lovely. You might note that Morris posed with her pet mouse.

I sometimes despair that I am unable to convince my peers of the value of my Epson V700 scanner.

Kimberly Klass

In my career as a portrait photographer in Vancouver beginning in 1977 until recently (I keep shooting portraits in my dotage), I photographed many important and famous people and the not so famous whom I met in my everyday life. Some became my friends.

Such a person (not famous) was Kimberly Klass. She came into my life as a guest in our Thursday tertulia at the Railway Club in the 80s. She was adventurous and curious. She would come to our home(which I shared with my Rosemary) in Kerrisdale as she wanted to listen to my extensive jazz collection.

I took many photographs of her. Months later she committed suicide. None of us ever found out what led her to that.

Now with my splendid 38inch wide Acer monitor I have been browsing all my photo files. When I got to Kimberly’s I was astounded at those that featured her black clothing and black stockings. With my new expertise in using my Photoshop 8 (22 year’s old) which has resulted with my constant use of it I have found a better way to show here these photographs that I took of this amazing woman.

In his poem Negro el diez, Julio Cortázar has a line - tu sombra espera tras de toda luz. That translates appropriately for these photographs as - Your shadow waits behind every light