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| Jean Stilwell - March 2004 |
Jean Stilwell - Mezzo- Soprano
Mezzo-soprano Jean Stilwell has been in my thoughts for days.
It all began when I remember my session with her in my Granville and Robson studio. Because I could not remember her name I could not find he in my alphabetical order files. This happens with age and I am 81. Googling did not help.
But there was this that happened and I did remember. At the time Stilwell came to my studio she was 49. After I took her photographs she asked me to photograph her bare chest. I was shocked and asked her why. She told me that she had a good friend in Vancouver, an actress called Babz Chula who had breast cancer. She wanted to have the picture taken in solidarity. So I took the picture but began with a Polaroid.
Then I made a rude mistake (now with age I would know better). I told her that I had problems shooting her chest as her breasts were droopy. She did not quite get angry but put me in my place in that her breasts were what all breast do at her age.
I then told her (sort of making up for my rudeness) that I would take the Polaroid and find a nice Seagull pewter frame (then made in Pugwash, Nova Scotia). There was a Seagull store on Robson. That evening Stilwell smiled when I presented her with the framed Polaroid.
I put Babz Chula into my internal Blogger search engine and found the two blogs I wrote about Stilwell and how that date of March 20-27 2004 in the Vancouver Sun marked my first manipulated photograph!
