Alice Munro circa 1981 - North Vancouver

 10 July 1931 – 13 May 2024

"A short story is a novel in minuscule." Jerome Charyn

Today I called my Newyorican novelist friend Jerome Charyn and asked him to define a short story in one sentence. He did.

It was around 1977 that I started my career as a magazine photographer with Vancouver Magazine. I did not know much about technique or lighting. By 1981 when I was assigned to go to North Vancouver to photograph a writer called Alice Munro I had no idea who she was and the quality of my photography had not evolved.

When I arrived at her house my impression was that her house looked Gothic, almost scary. I made then my decision to photograph Munro outside her house. I took 14 shots. The first one here was severely underexposed and in the second one I completely ignored the fact that the sunlight was harsh on her face.

There was one pleasant incident. I had driven my Fiat X-19 to her house. When she looked at it she said, “What a cute car you have there. Could you take me for a spin in it?” I did.

In 2013 when she won her Nobel Prize in Literature I was in Buenos Aires. Somehow the New York Times was able to contact me and I they inquired for the use the photo seen in my blog. They asked me if I could send them a higher resolution scan. I informed them the negative was in Vancouver and that I was in Buenos Aires. They lifted my picture from my blog and I was paid handsomely.

In my career as a photographer I have managed to photograph two other Nobel Prize winners. One, in literature was Mario Vargas Llosa and the other, a Nobel Peace Prize was of Argentine author Enrique Pérez Esquivel. 

Nobel Prize In Literature - 2010

Adolfo Perez Esquivel - Nobel Peace Prize - 1980