Jorge Luís Borges

These first days of the new year of 2018 are for me days when I look back and try to see my way ahead. 

Today I thought of 1979 when I was working for a gay publication called Bi-Line. I was their chief photographer and the only one. Even though I was new in the magazine game I had to learn quickly as Bi-Line was a weekly the size of the Georgia Straight. Its editor, Ron Langen assigned me to go to a forest in Surrey in the middle of January to photograph two women and two men who would wear nothing. We went prepared with a large bottle of brandy to help stifle the cold.

The idea was to convey through photographs (I had a brand new Mamiya R-B67 and only one lens a 65mm which in the 6x7 cm format was close to a 35mm 35 wide angle) an Adam and Eve with two Adams and two Eves. In the end it was mostly about Adam, Adam and Eve. The photographs were (I was lucky) quite beautiful but I can only place one here that I have cropped.

Even though I was living in Burnaby this job was an exciting one. It meant I went to places like Faces, the Luv-A-Fair and many other gay clubs and I saw a world that was completely new to me.

One of the Adams was a handsome (perhaps beautiful) blonde ballet dancer and time has erased his name from my memory. I remember that he had an easy smile and was soft-spoken. Langen made me take pictures of him as Santa Claus. The one picture here is the only one that does not show the part that might offend.

I think that the Bi-Line experience (I photographed many nude young men and a few beautiful women of exotic sexual persuasion, many drag queens) prepared me to live in this 21^st century without having to feel shock at how the world has changed.

My only regret is that I did not right the name of the blonde young apparition of a man. As for the woman, Maddalena , she became my friend and she posed for me for many years. She now lives in Italy.