Anita -

In my blogs I often write that I studied philosophy in an American College in Mexico City. I was studying to be an engineer (I failed electricity) and at the same time I was taking philosophy courses with a brilliant mind Ramón Xirau. While he started with Pre-Socratics and ended with Sartre I was quite obsessed with Plato and his idea of a perfect world that our senses could never see.

A few years ago because Rosemary and I had cats we had to constantly suffer their death. We soon discovered that the fastest cure to the grief of a dead cat was a brand new one. And, especially, if it was a middle-aged rescue from the SPCA. My take was that the new cat inherited that perfection that all felines have that I call “catness”.

Since I began to photograph unclothed women in the late 70s until just about one year ago, I realized that with the death of my Rosemary on December 9, 2010, that she was the only woman I was interested in and attracted to.

A photographer has to (that is my case) keep taking photographs.  Since I have really specialized in facing my camera on a person, I quickly discovered that I wanted to somehow get that perfect humanity (that Platonic one) that we humans all possess. After all, if I am me I cannot be someone else.

This led me to the idea, that while I have most always taken portraits with a sometimes severe eye contact into my lens, I had to go further.

Whenever I now have the chance of taking photographs of a woman I want to get that which she is and I am not.

In those past years of my life in Vancouver I often got (they stopped about a year ago) phone calls from women that I did not know who wanted me to take “different” photographs of them. That was the case of a woman called Anita who called me in 2010. She posed for me twice. Once was in our Kerrisdale living room. The second time, in that living room, and in my car, when she was visibly pregnant.

This century has brought us Brazilian (as in no hair down there) pornography in Twitter/X. There is a nasty profusion on red carpets and videos of women holding a mike to their mouth, wearing next to nothing and then they move their rear ends in every possible sinuous direction.

I see my photographs with all those bits and pieces showing as less offensive and almost elegant. They now do not follow was is called “community standards.

I looked through my contact sheets of Anita and I found these two that would not offend anybody and at the same time they show in spades Anita’s Platonic essence of a woman.

And to be clear if I were to photograph a trans woman I would do as here. Trans women, if they see themselves as women, they are so. 

Dreaming in that past century was something that as a photographer and occasional writer I could indulge with pleasure. I could go to just about any magazine or newspaper in Vancouver and see the editor without previous appointment.

In that last century I went to Charles Campbell  then editor of the Georgia Straight with the idea of doing a fashion spread with story by David Boswell (he of the Reid Fleming The World’s Toughest Milkman). I further suggested we use dancers from Ballet BC.

Because I was a friend of the Marble Arch Hotel owner, Tony Ricci, we used the finest room of this then sleazy hotel.

People with keen eyes might notice that in the second photograph there is a framed portrait of Vancouver poet Michael Turner. A few years before, I had photographed him in that room with a beautiful woman in black underwear lying on the bed behind him. I had been commissioned by the Toronto literary magazine, Quill & Quire to take the portrait. As soon as the magazine was published, I received a phone call from the editor who called to thank me. He told me that my photo had elicited the first complaint ever for his staid magazine.

Desire and Murder and Michael Turner at the Marble Arch 

Boswell’s scenario was about three women luring a man into the room and killing him with a snub-nosed .38 revolver.

And so it happened.

Karen Kampbell - May 1989

Del ár. hisp. *azzahr, y este del ár. zahr 'dado1'; literalmente 'flores'.

Azar is a lovely  Spanish that when you see that z you know that it comes from the Arabic as the RAE (Real Academia Española) Dictionary defines that in its etymology. It means chance or my preferred serendipity but its original meaning was flowers..

In May June 1989 my portrait of model Karen Campbell appeared in the Georgia Straight as an Intro. Writer John Lekich and I had gone to see editor Charles Campbell and we told him we knew this extraordinarily beautiful woman. We suggested that he place it in his newspaper with a short accompanying essay. These became Intros. Ours was the first.

In 1989 I was crazy trying to imitate the Hollywood portraits of the 40s as perfected by George Hurrell. This sort of thing involved many lights including a focusing spotlight. Years before Angie from Beau Photo had sold me one for $15. In that spotlight I would slip in metal gobos (go-betweens) that had patterns stamped on them. In the case of Campbell I projected clouds.

I believe that this is as close as I ever got to George Hurrell.

When my photograph appeared in the Straight I can tell that the result was inferior to my print. In those days scanners were still not in operation. The image in this blog is one of the scanned b+w 6x7cm negative.

I started this with azar or serendipity because I am doing my best of filing all my photographs in preparation for my eventual oblivion. My daughters will decide what to do with my extreme output.

Today I found this single Ektachrom e under some of my Nikons. I have no idea how it got here and no memory of ever taking any Ektachromes of Campbell. I must have somehow copied an 8x10 b+w print and there were reflections. The slight blue cast is normal for Ektachromes.

Perhaps this one image leaves Hurrell behind and this is my own to savour.

Something I must mention here how my program refuses to accept the existence of the word Ektachrome.

Abraham Rogatnick and his Murano glass

Rebecca & Dulcinea 

Barnes - Involuntary Autobiographical Memore (IAM) 

Un ruego de Sancho: "No se muera vuestra merced, señor mío, sino tome mi consejo y viva muchos años, porque la mayor locura que puede hacer un hombre en esta vida es dejarse morir...". Don Quijote de la Mancha

A request from Sancho Panza: “Don’t die your worship, sir of mine, but take my advice and live for many years, as the worst madness that a man can make in this life to let himself die…” Don Quijote de la Mancha

I cannot get out of my mind what my friend, architect Abraham Rogatnick told me a few months before he died, “Alex I am not long for this world and I am glad.”

In my present isolation and loneliness, somehow ameliorated by the constant warm presence of my cats Niño and Niña, I feel that I am waiting. I used to tell Rosemary, “We are WTD (waiting to die).” I then modified that to PTD or preparing to die. Because I studied statistics in college I definitely think of my impending end constantly. While I am not yet suicidal I have wondered how the Canadian MAID affects one’s life insurance.

My will persists because Niño stares at me and tells me (in Spanish), “If you go first who will take care of us?”

The above quote of advice from Sancho Panza brings more IAMs because my abuelita who was well versed in Don Quijote often told me stories about that great Spanish novel. I read it because of her influence and then not too long ago I read it again to find out what the name of Sancho’s donkey was. I found out that the donkey did not have a name and was simply called “el rucio” which means “the spotted one”.

When Rebecca, my oldest granddaughter, was a young girl I took her to a play inspired by Don Quijote. I was happy to find out that she enjoyed herself. Who knows she just might one day think of me as I thought of my abuelita. She inspired me. Might I inspire Rebecca to think of me when I meet my oblivion?

Un ruego de Sancho: "No se muera vuestra merced, señor mío, sino tome mi consejo y viva muchos años, porque la mayor locura que puede hacer un hombre en esta vida es dejarse morir...". Don Quijote de la Mancha

A request from Sancho Panza: “Don’t die your worship, sir of mine, but take my advice and live for many years, as the worst madness that a man can make in this life to let himself die…” Don Quijote de la Mancha

I cannot get out of my mind what my friend, architect Abraham Rogatnick told me a few months before he died, “Alex I am not long for this world and I am glad.”

In my present isolation and loneliness, somehow ameliorated by the constant warm presence of my cats Niño and Niña, I feel that I am waiting. I used to tell Rosemary, “We are WTD (waiting to die).” I then modified that to PTD or preparing to die. Because I studied statistics in college I definitely think of my impending end. While I am not yet suicidal I have wondered how the Canadian MAID affects one’s life insurance.

My will persists because Niño stares at me and tells me (in Spanish), “If you go first who will take care of us?”

The above quote of advice from Sancho Panza brings more IAMs because my abuelita who was well versed in Don Quijote often told me stories about that great Spanish novel. I read it because of her influence and then not too long ago I read it again to find out what the name of Sancho’s donkey was. I found out that the donkey did not have a name and was simply called “el rucio” which means “the spotted one”.

When Rebecca, my oldest granddaughter, was a young girl I took her to a play inspired by Don Quijote (see above link). I was happy to find out that she enjoyed herself. Who knows she just might one day think of me as I thought of my abuelita. She inspired me. Might I inspire Rebecca to think of me when I meet my oblivion?