In this blog I wrote this:

Of my life I have never complained that I have been unlucky. At age 75 my health is just fine. I have been married to my Rosemary now for 49 years. No, I am not content. I am happy!

I know another person just like my Rosemary in one particular way.

Her name is Y and she is a professional dominatrix. I have never hired her for her services. We had had a long photographic relationship. My wife, she is definitely not a dominatrix but she does nag me into action all the time. Rosemary and Y share a dislike for any photograph I have ever taken of them.

But somewhere in some corner of my Ukrainian’s intelligent mind there must be a little space where she holds a memory of one or two photographs that I have taken of her that she almost liked.

The one you see is one of my many favourites. Y, since she was next to impossible to please, made me try harder to find that picture that just might make her smile. But then I have almost no memory of Y smiling. My memory of her is of her temper directed at anybody who might ask her, “Are you from the Ukraine?”  Her rapid answer was always, “Ukraine, fu-cking Ukraine!”

Singer Ferron has been in the news of late. I thought she had disappeared. But I understand that she will be performing this coming Sunday at the Vancouver Folk Festival on Jericho Beach.

My portrait of Ferron which I took in 1979 was almost a failure. I had a new highfalutin medium format camera, a Mamiya RB-67. I had hardly used it. I had the money to buy only one lens which for this format was a wide angle lens. This meant I had to be careful when I got close to my subjects so as not to distort them.

I had also purchased a used Ascor QC-1000 studio flash system. I had gone to my Burnaby branch of the Bank of Montreal on Willingdon and Hastings. I needed to borrow $2000 to buy it. The older Scottish woman who was the loans officer asked me what I could offer as collateral. I put a thick pile of Bi-Lines on her desk. At the time Bi-Line was a weekly gay publication I worked for. I was a bit concerned about my not-yet-untarnished reputation so I was listed as Strut McPherson as the photographer of the racy displays of male (and some female) nudity. Perhaps it was my choice of the Scottish nom de plume but the woman liked my photographs and lent me the money.

The day of the shoot at Ferron’s house which was somewhere in Kitsilano, to my shock she only had two-prong outlets in her old house. I could not use my flash nor did I even think of bringing an adaptor. Luckily window light worked very well with Ilford F-P4 with my heavy camera sitting solidly on a tripod.

As an Argentine-born but now Canadian citizen I do not like President Donald Trump in the least. I think he is a shady character I would never buy a used car from. Just the allegations on his puss- grabbing should have been enough to disqualify the man from holding office in the United States. All those financial imbroglios of his and his underlings are questionable.

But somewhere here I believe that too much is being discussed about the man’s (or his PR department on those Time Magazine fake covers.

In 1988 in the height of the magazine era I had taken portraits of runner Ben Johnson for Vancouver Magazine. When his drug scandal during the Olympics unfolded my friend an Vancouver Magazine art director suggested I send the images to Time. In 1988 Dahl had a new-fangled device called a scanner. He scanned my 6x7cm Ektachrome, and we faxed my Vancouver Magazine shots to Time. Subsequently I was paid lots of money for the Canadian cover. This was the dawning of the digital era. Dahl then made a handout promo piece that served me well for some years.

Not long after my wife Rosemary, our two daughters and I went to Hawaii. In the shopping malls there they had places where they took your portrait and put it on the magazine cover of your choice. I believe that Cosmopolitan was popular for young women who wanted to appear in racy clothing.

In the early 90s fellow photographers began to ask me if my Time Magazine cover was for real. By then some photographers were faking stuff and putting it into their portfolios. Discerning art directors did enquire and put those photographers in their place.

At one time I believe that a Polaroid hard copy print might have been accepted as evidence in a trial. Now the honesty of a photograph can only be judged by the knowledge we might have of a photographer’s ethics and reputation.

I do not believe that Time Magazine should sue Trump over the fake cover. The cover should be piled up on all that other evidence of the man’s lack of authenticity.