Sunday, July 30, 2006



A few years ago some freelance writers and photographers would meet on Thursdays for lunch at the Railway Club on Dunsmuir and Seymour in Vancouver. An infrequent apparition was a beautiful, shapely and tall blond woman who sat at a nearby table. All we could do was to spy glances as we did not have enough nerve to invite her to sit at our table. I looked forward to those days when she did show up. One day I decided that all she could do was say, "No." So I went up to her and asked, "I would like to photograph you undraped." She looked at me straight in the eye and responded, "I would be delighted."

I anticipated our afternoon appointment at my studio with pleasure. She arrived and she unceremoniously took her clothes off. I was speechless. She had had a mastectomy, she had an appendix scar and two C-section scars. I did not know what to do. Now, of course, I would photograph her as she is. That time around I worked around the "problems". One of the photographs, El Baile de las Sábanas Blancas (above, left) is one of my favourite and most sensual photographs. The title means, "the white sheet dance or ball". As a little boy I would fight going to bed and my mother would say, "Alex, es la hora de ir al baile de las sábanas blancas." This dance of the white sheets, was my bed. I have never forgotten the expression, and even now I would not sleep in anything but crisp white sheets.

And often when I despair at not being rich like a plumber, I do come to accept that being a photographer does have a few advantages.