Fuji X-E3 f-7.1

I have a lovely 29-year-old friend, Emily, who lives in Victoria and has a penchant for Polaroid cameras, wigs and changing her hair colour often. When she comes to Vancouver she poses for me. It is fun because not only is she beautiful but she is also intelligent and a fine photographer in her own right.

We had a session on Friday, August 20 that should have been a disaster. Consider that I decided to use four cameras. Two were Nikon FM-2 cameras, one loaded with Kodak Black and White Infrared, the other with Rollei B+W Infrared. The third camera was my medium format Mamiya RB-67 with Rollei’s Infrared in 120. The fourth camera was my Fuji X-E3 set for colour.

Fuji X-E3

I used two Minolta Flash Meters. One was set to ISO 80 (the film) the other to 200 for the Fuji. That may sound straightforward.

It was not. Since I was using only one cable to connect the cameras to my studio flash on a softbox or my ringflash I had to be alert to connect and disconnect. The Nikon 35mm wide-angle lens with the deep red filter forced me to be very careful in transferring it from one Nikon to the other. In doing so I might unset the f-stop. Because the Mamiya is not too sharp if you open the lens more than f-11 I had to change the power setting of the flash unit to get more output.

Nikon FM-2 Kodak b+w Infrared Film

I would look through the Nikon and I could not see anything why? Because the Fuji has the viewer on the left corner and the Nikon in the middle… And of course I would pick up the Fuji and look through the middle and see nothing.

In spite of all that I believe that the photographs are very good. With the Fuji I shot in two ways. One in a conventional manner and in the other only using the modeling light with my camera set at the magical f 7.1. This setting grossly underexposes but the results when corrected produce startling (for me) effects.

Fuji X E-3

A gunfighter is as good as his last shootout. I think that this translates to a photographer that he/she is as good as the last shot. I believe I survived my session with Emily.

Fuji X-E3

 Flying but not on the Concord

Vigilancia en pleno vacío - Cortázar 

Inspiration in a Chevrolet Cruze

In the last few weeks I have experienced computer failure (my 17-year-old Photoshop CS-8 would not open). This meant that I could not scan my plants nor download photos from my digital camera. I was hit by a terrible melancholy as I have a few but important to me daily activities that I could not do. My beginning routine is breakfast in bed (alone) with the NY Times and the Vancouver Sun after feeding Niño and Niña. Niño galavants but Niña returns and lies between my legs in bed.As soon as I enter my oficina the two cats take turns to meow for attention. On nice days (not today) I go with Niño around the block at 3 or 4.

The routine also involves walking in the garden to see what plants to scan. I was not able to do that until this past Tuesday when my computer ills were repaired by the resourceful Bensen at Powersonic Computers in Richmond. That Photoshop now opens!

I have written here how my by now 1500 plant scans (all are at least 100Meg in size) are my manly version of soothing golf without sandtraps. I do not play golf. I enjoy arranging the plants on my scanner and removing dust and correcting the shadow detail (all done with the very good 17-year-old Photoshop). It is fun even if all those scans will amount to nothing when I finally reach my eventual oblivion. It is just a fun exercise. I no longer worry about my legacy.

The only legacy that counts, I have come to understand, is my 1500 sized blog. I will show my two daughters how to pay web hosting and domain name fees to keep the blog up. My blog is a repository of family stuff, it contains some of my best photographs, and there is a lot of information about Vancouver that I deem important that we should remember in a city with a poor memory.

All this is happening when I am still having and unending grief over the death of my Rosemary 9 months ago.

I can sort of live with running into stuff in the house (our dishes, the few clothes left of hers in the closet, etc) butt today I was overcome with a grief that was terrible. I was dusting the piano room and when I went under the red psychiatric couch I found a box with coloured pencils. This was a personal and direct connection to Rosemary.

It may have been sometime in October of last year, which was the last time I went with Rosemary to Indigo on Granville and Broadway. She bought the pencils for one of our granddaughters. As we were leaving the bookstore I told her, “Rosemary I cannot wait for us to go to Buenos Aires soon and be in a Buenos Aires bookstore that only stocks books.”

I remember that as if were yesterday and the pencil case brought it all back.

If anything, that grief has at the very least, brought me back to writing tonight. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day.

Unfortunately I will be at Mt. St. Joseph Hospital in the morning for a cystoscopy. I will not explain what that is. Google will help anybody who may be curious.

But I can end this with a postive note. I am proud of myself that after re-scanning this deteriorated colour negative of Rosemary and yours truly, taken in 1968 at the University of Mexico Botanical Garden by our friend Andrew Taylor (he now lives in Guadalajara with his wife Ilse), I was able after some effort, to place it on my desktop.