Tarren

My first awareness of woman was a little creature that with mother hopped on the bus on Avenida Esmeralda in Buenos Aires. I was with my mother. The little creature was wearing a dress but her hair was shaved off. I was 8 years old. Until then I thought that little girls were identified by long hair and dresses.

A couple of years later during the Buenos Aires carnival I was in the subway. I looked at the rear of the next car and saw a woman’s back. I was confused as it was muscular. I never would have imagined then or understood that it was a man dressed as a woman.

A few weeks after I met Rosemary in 1967 we were at a gathering in the apartment of my then mentor, Raúl Guerrero Montemayor He had promoted my relationship with Rosemary. Rosemary was leaning on one side of a fireplace and found myself staring at her face. I was looking at every facet and detail of her lovely face. That evening is one that I will never forget. Did I discover something about her?

Not long after our first daughter Alexandra was born I suggested I photograph them with nothing on. This I did.

In 1977 I started going to Wreck Beach and I took my second nude (Rosemary was first!) of a woman called April. It was an experience that without knowing shaped my photographic life. I did not  remove the sand from her feet. To me it is the sand that defines my photograph of her.

Since that second nude I have taken many more until quite recently.

Today I thought about those events in my past and my relationship with Rosemary and how I now tell people that the only woman I am interested is dead.

I has an inkling of an idea last night. Of all the women I have ever photographed Tarren is one that had and aura that attracted me to photograph her often. I have written lots of blogs about her. What was that inkling of an idea?

Because I studied philosophy from 1962 to 1963 I came to appreciate and understand Plato’s concept called the Theory of Forms. He asserted that the physical world is not really the real world; instead ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world.

I went through my thick files of Tarren and chose two pictures. To me they represent what I saw in Rosemary so long ago. Rosemary and Tarren reflect a glimpse into the true essence of what a woman is.