Saturday, May 06, 2023

My first two cameras, the Pentacon- F new in 1958, the Pentax S-3 used in 1962

For most of us, our memories (unless we were blind from birth or became so later in life) are based in people we have met and seen. The memories in our mind are visual. There are also sounds and scent associated with them.

As a photographer I must add that my memories may be more intense when I look at my framed photographs of family and friends or delve into my photo files.

But in the last few days, because I have noticed that many of my peers are selling their expensive Leicas and Hasselblads on social media, my memories include what I saw and felt when I looked through the viewfinder of my cameras beginning with my first camera, a Pentacon-F that I bought in 1958.

There were decisions of deciding to shoot vertical or horizontal. There were decisions of using lights. There are memories of telling my subjects to wait as I reloaded my camera. There are memories when I knew I had my shot and that I did not need to proceed to take more.

But there is more. Those images in my head began with a person whose face and body travelled into my camera and exposed the film.That image was (not yet processed) was latent. Until the film and images were process in my darkroom were my memories of the person latent, too?

I marvel at that journey, from person through the lens of my camera as an inverted image of light.

Those cameras being sold all seem to be in mint condition. All my cameras have been around the block. They look the part of having been used and used.

Every camera I own, not matter how old, works beautifully. Picking any of them up instantly brings to mind memorable portrait sessions.

To me they represent multiple, Arthurian Swords Excalibur. With  them in my hand, I could not fail; and fail I rarely did.

While my cameras are metal objects I see in them some humanity. They are a depository of human feelings, mine and those of my subjects. Would selling any of them be a travesty? I believe so.

This is why I will die with all my cameras in my oficina neatly stored and my daughters will have to decide for me (I cannot) what to do with them.

Friday, May 05, 2023

 

Hosta 'Liberty', H. Halcyon, H. 'Cameo' & left H. 'El Niño' taken with a Galaxy 5

The horrible flood in my house on Wednesday has my cats Niño and Niña in turmoil. I wrote about it here. Despair Not II

Today 5 May, 2023 I imagine, when I am in my bedroom with the two cats, and listening to the noise of the many dehumidifiers, that I am flying to some exotic location like the National Convention of the American Hosta Society in Ames, Iowa (to be held June 7).

It is a melancholy day of rain and I realized that the only positive idea to think about is to look at my garden that I am getting ready for the Vancouver Rose Society open gardens in mid June.

Thanks to my eldest daughter Alexandra, who will be accompanying me to Ames, I enjoy writing a daily blog that in this case can also apply to the AHS FB page. Ale got me into it. It offers me a little distraction from the grief I feel over the loss of my Rosemary (52 years married) on 9 December 2020.

Some who read my blog may know that I was a magazine photographer in Vancouver beginning around 1977. I shot film cameras and thanks to prodding from Rosemary I bought a digital one 8 years ago. I shoot film, lots, too. Sometimes my Galaxy 5 can take unusual photographs in low light and one in particular to today’s rainy skies. 

Deck garden - Fuji X-E3 panoramic

 

The other photographs that I have posted here are with my Fuji X-E3 which has the feature of being able to take wide and extra wide panoramics.

The one here is from my bedroom window which is the only place left in my home with a bit of solace for my cats and me. 

Garden from bedroom window - Fuji X-E3

 

The photograph of my laneway garden I shot a day before I cut the edge of the grass with scissors as my Rosemary did. Her Ipheions are in bloom right now and their foliage is close to the edge of the flower bed so I cannot use a weedeater. 

Rosemary's ipheions

My laneway garden has one English Rose and four old roses. One of them R. sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha flowered May 1 There are 3 hostas in this bed H. 'Sum and Substance, H. plantaginea & H. 'Invincible'

 

Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha

Thursday, May 04, 2023

 

I used the photographs above here (link below) before. Tonight, Thursday May 4, 2023 I find myself using the photographs again. Why?

Despair Not I

I left the house yesterday at noon to look for plants that Rosemary loved that have disappeared or died in our present garden. It seems that this Kitsilano garden is becoming a botanical equivalent of a park bench with your love one’s name. This is a common occurrence here in Vancouver.

I returned at 3:30 to a flooded house. A hose connecting to the 3d floor guest bathroom toilet had burst. There was water everywhere even in two floors down in the kitchen.

It seems I made one good decision that helped (a bit). I shut off the water valve going to that toilet and immediately drove to London Drugs and bought a shop vac. I sucked up water for hours. My Hilary and her husband Bruce came around 9 to help me move furniture so we could remove soaked carpets.

Today the house insurance people sent an efficient team. They will be here until midnight. My cats do not know where to hide. The noise of the 8 or 9 dehumidifiers is deafening. The only quiet place is the oficina. As I write this I have the company of Niño and Niña.

Baseboards have been removed and blue tape is placed in wall and ceilings that will have to be entered through holes. I am in a state of shock.

I feel like the woman I photographed so many years ago in despair by the Vancouver General Hospital.

I could manage if I were sharing all this turmoil with my Rosemary. That photograph on the left represents the stability I had for 52 years.

I must now find a way of finding some of that within me. Perhaps Niño, as stable as a cat can be, might just teach me.

Then there are three pieces of good news.

The vet called me today to tell me that Niño’s blood work a few days ago revealed that there is nothing wrong with my 10 year old cat. I had been worried because he had lost weight and suddenly got interested in human food. The vet will recommend soft food that I can give Niño that will make him gain some weight.

There were two inches of water in the second floor piano room. My over 100 year old refurbished baby grand Chickering suffered no damage. We (my daughters and I ) have discovered that although I had house insurance somehow Rosemary forgot to get insurance for our house belongings which my insurance policy would no cover. I lucked out.

Last night I was enjoying a restful tub bath as all my muscles hurt when the phone rang. I got out of the tub with wet feet. As I walked to the bedroom I slipped and fell and hit my head soundly on the wall. While not as old as my Chickering, I survived it all with no bruises or concussion.

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

 

 

My filing cabinets in my oficina are loaded with photographs I started taking in 1958. There are actors, actresses (I am old fashioned) politicians, hoods, producers, ecdysiasts (many), boxers, directors, punk musicians and musicians of every category and of course lots of family photographs.

As a rosarian I am constantly asked, “What is your favourite rose?  My answer usually is, “It depends on the day or the week.” I am constantly asked, “Who is the most famous person you have ever photographed?” The answer is similar to the one of the rose.

But of late I believe that I may have an unmatched talent (yes! I am boasting!) in my photographs of children. The children were my two daughters when young and my two granddaughters before they became women.

I have written several blogs as to why I do not ever make these children smile. I was inspired by the two English 19^th century photographers, the Reverend Dodgson and Julia Margaret Cameron. They both photographed an unsmiling Alice Liddell.

Today, May 3, 2023, in the turmoil of a flooded house (read my May 4 blog) I was looking over my digital files of family photographs. I have always considered this portrait of Rebecca posing with a blue agave in Queen Elizabeth Park’s Bloedel Conservatory one of my most iconic portrait of her. In that family file I found that completely different second shot. Because she is wearing the same blouse it was obviously taken minutes before or after the first one.

For me the quality of the one with her hair up just proves that taking pictures of children is my mettle.

 

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

 

I have an Argentine friend who believes in reincarnation. I often tell her that if I was a camel before I was born as Alex (in reality Jorge Alejandro) and I have never remembered that I was a camel or that when I meet my oblivion (she does not believe in that) and I will become a hippo and the hippo does not remember being Alex, I don’t see this as a positive Karl Jaspers’s Existenzphilosophie with any relevance.

Oblivion is what I really believe in. A sampling of that in some way may agree with my friend’s belief in reincarnation. I have no memory of these photographs being taken at a crib in Buenos Aires. No, I was not a camel in that other life. I was this guy. But I don’t remember.