My friend, Ian Bateson a retired illustrator and designe, now an artist,
has a special talent of annoying me with comments that he often repeats to me. One
of them is, “You are reiterating yourself.”
And indeed when something is good I feel I should be able to
write about it, speak about it, and, especially to photograph it again, and
again. Indeed the present blog has a previous variation.
In these days of quarantine reflection (the first encourages
in me the second) I go through my files to see what I can find that enable me
to reiterate myself.
Today’s jackpot is my former friend and marvellous ecdysiast
Annette. Had I known then her last name I might be able to find her now. I last
and first photographed her, three times, in 1988. The first time I shot what in
my innocence of youth did not understand to be simple boudoir. I do believe
that the three here are a tad less cheesy than most do these days. A third time
(before I write about the second time) involved a series of photographs that I
took of women at home that had a pattern.
I would ring the bell and then allowed in. I would request a
coffee or tea. In the kitchen or living room I would look around and then
decide where I would take a series of photographs (but always in one location)
with my subject not wearing anything. The show which I had in a local gallery
was called Homebodies. In the case of Annette, she opened the door and told me
to excuse the mess as she was painting the kitchen. I photographed her standing
on a stool in the kitchen holding a paint roller in one hand and showing off
one of the loveliest bodies I have ever seen. I cannot place that photograph
here.
That second time involved shooting for an article that my
now gone friend, Garry Marchant was writing for a magazine about BC jade and
the fact that it was mined by a Canadian petroleum company. Because in 1988 we
magazine photographers were given extraordinary liberties I decided to
photograph Annette with a background of BC jade tiles. To contrast the greenness
I used a red hairlight.
In those 80s whenever I had to shoot for brochures and
magazines I was often asked where I obtained my unusually beautiful models. All
I ever did was to answer with a smile.
