A Woman of Style & Elegance
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Because I never had an arts education and I am simply an art enthusiast, I have no real knowledge of the history of art. But like the amateur that I am, I tend to like realist painting and have a few problems with Picasso’s cubist portraits and nudes.
I may be
part of a legion that admires and appreciates the Pre-Raphaelites. When I
photographed this apparition who posed for me for 30 years (and perhaps even
more) the apparition she was, and is, seemed to be firmly grounded and
particularly to my large (alas long gone!) studio on Robson and Granville.
But I was
much too ignorant to catch on that while I have admired a Waterhouse (John William
Waterhouse) that I am not related to, I did not see the contemporary (as in the
end of last century) possibilities of my apparition being photographed
in a Pre-Raphaelite setting.
A few years
ago a woman, a beautiful woman she was, looked at my photographs and said (the
ultimate insult beyond something like, “I think your nudes are tasteful
[ugh!]), “I don’t do boudoir.”
There is no
way these snaps (they are not exactly sharp) which I took with a Nikon FM-2 and
colour negative film could be deemed as boudoir. The light came from Eaton’s/Sears that was on
the other side of the street. It was a huge block of a white wall that reflected light
into my studio, went to the opposite white wall, and came back to lightly open
up the shadows of her face.
The reason
is not the failing talent of this photographer but the class and style of my
apparition whom I will name Tarren.
As I wrote
here and here about the lack of good taste, elegance and style, Tarren has style, elegance and good taste
in spades.
A lucky man I have been and am.
A lucky man I have been and am.
