With Y in Burnaby Dec 2007

As a portrait photographer I have been reluctant to take my self-portrait. But in my 65 years as a photographer I must admit that I have quite a collection. In that other century, the method was to place your camera on a tripod and either use a long device called a bulb or to use the camera’s self-timer.

In this century, thanks to smart phones, the self-portrait has deteriorated (my opinion) into prolific selfies which in the conventional lingo of now, is captured.

I was thinking about the above when I remembered a photograph that I took 16 years ago, using a bulb with my friend Y the professional dominatrix. She suggested the pose. I was reluctant as I have always had a code of ethics that I never touch my subjects, particularly when they are not wearing anything. Y persisted and I gave way. This is my favourite selfie, which for me is on the same league of one that I took, with a self-timer, of Rosemary and me in 1967 on Mocambo Beach in Veracruz.

With Rosemary in Mocambo, Veracruz 1967

All the above set me to think further. This is that in my life I have been influenced by one pushy woman (my Rosemary) and I would have to include the dominatrix who in the many years that I photographed her I learned a lot as to what makes us human.

Left not a selfie taken by Rosemary Jan 23 2018 & right Dec 1987

I would never be writing this in my comfortable oficina, in what is now my Kits home, with no money worries, had it not been for Rosemary’s financial acumen. That she plainly told us in 1975 that Mexico was not a good place for out two daughters to grow up in and that we were moving to Vancouver was a brilliant decision by the best pushy woman of my life.

In some strange way my two cats have inherited some of this from Rosemary. Without talking, or being overly pushy, they give me a reason for waking up in the morning and living my day.