Dorothy Stratten Lost & Found
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
From left to right and from top to bottom:
Ron Woodall on top of the Expo Golf Ball 1986, Joe Philliponi at the Penthouse, Dorothy Stratten 1980.
Punks in house in Victoria Drive, Johnny Thunders and girlfriend at Gary Taylor's Rock Room, M at Wreck Beach.
Dog for Vancouver Magazine article, Stripathon/car wash at the Drake Hotel, Yours truly and my half brother Enrique.
When Rosemary and I and our two daughters were living in
Mexico City in the early 70s our house had a little shop I installed a
carpentry tools which included a very nice table saw. I built furniture which I
finished with car lacquer. Because my darkroom was the bathroom in the shop it
was difficult to keep it sawdust-free.
In that shop I had a large box where I kept bits of wood
which I though could be used. Every few months I would either throw it away or
burn it in our fireplace.
The same sort of thing happens to photographers who have a
darkroom. They (and I did) keep boxes of negatives and prints that are supposed
to be filed but end up not being filed.
In our Athlone home in Kerrisdale four years ago I had many
boxes of stuff. When we moved to Kitsilano I put them in my studio attic.
Because the attice has the nails from the roof sticking in and it is cramped so
I cannot stand in it I wear my bicycle helmet for protection.
I have not been able to find my 52mm (for most Nikon lenses)
Number 25 deep red filter which is most
important to shoot Kodak Black+White Infrared Film (in discontinuance, a fine
Kodak-coined word, since 2007. I have a generous quantitI have a generous
quantity of this film in my freezer. But lately I have discovered a close copy
of this film called Rollei Infrared Film. It resembles the Kodak film because
it does not have the anti-helation layer which when the film is overexposed it
produces pleasant halos around human figures. This Rollei film should be shot
with that deep red filter.
In the move the filter has been lost so I must tape (it works)
a Pentax-sized 49 mm to the Nikon lenses. The photo stores in Vancouver don’t
carry these filters.
I went to the studio attic today in search of that filter.
No filter was found but I did become curious at two large boxes full of
negatives, slides and photographs. In one of the batches I found the ones you
see here.
What is most interesting about the found slides is
that six of them are Kodachromes. Stratten's is not quite sharp and I
will have to take it to The Lab to be properly washed.