Friday, February 01, 2013

Mark Jaccard

Three months ago I received an email from a man called Brian Morgan. He told me that he had once worked at Duthie Books and while I did not know him he knew me. He further told me that when Duthie Books closed he had to re-invent himself. He became the art director of the only really good Canadian magazine left. The Walrus is a magazine in the spirit of the various incarnations of Saturday Night, a magazine I was lucky enough to contribute many times.

Morgan asked me if I wanted to photograph a Nobel Laureate. He also informed me he was going to pay me. The payment in question was pretty good.

I could not believe it. Days before I had been contemplating that as a magazine photographer I had as good a chance of getting work in today’s market as General Douglas MacArthur had after he was fired by President Harry Truman. Like MacArthur I could see my image fading in front of a mirror. I felt I was a badly fixed b+w print, a spark plug gap adjusting tool, or Ferdinand the Bull.

While not feeling exactly sorry for myself I thought the last bullet in my revolver had been fired.

Not so and today I can report that my photograph of activist and Nobel Laureate Mark Jaccard is up on The Walrus web page and probably must be a full page bleed (I hope!) in the hard copy magazine.

I can remember that some time in 1976 I had my first cover in a magazine in Vancouver. It was a travel trade magazine. My picture was a shot of Tulum in Mexico. I was thrilled. This was the first of hundreds of covers I eventually had through the years in some of the world’s best magazines. That thrill of a cover or a nice inside picture has never diminished. And today I am thrilled to see my picture in The Walrus. What’s next? Certainly not Ferdinand's pasture. Not quite yet.

The Accidental Activist - The Walrus