This 21st century is one where I believe the concept of taking striking photographs and portraits is all but forgotten. So has the concept of paying for them.

A week ago I received a request from a woman who wrote “Dear Alexy’ telling me that her organization was working on a documentary on architect Arthur Erickson and they wanted to use one of them. It just so happens that I may have the largest collection of photographs of Erickson.

No mention was made about payment. I want to note here that if the photographs in question have to be in high resolution (this was in the request) it costs money to have a negative, print or slide scanned. I happen to have a very good one.

I answered that I expected to be paid and that I would donate the funds to the Vancouver SPCA.

I never heard from her again.

Going back to that scanner (I have an excellent flatbed Epson Perfection V700 Photo) on these languid summer days, while I live in isolation with my brother and sister cats and not being able to handle the loss of my wife (she died on December 9, 2020), I like to scan my plants and fidget with what I call negative sandwiches. These negative sandwiches (two negatives scanned at the same time) work really well when they are from a same session.

Years ago I had a friend Nina Gouveia (now living in Gaucín, Spain) who introduced me to her friend, a yet unknown singer) Bif Naked.

Because of  I will place this blog into social media I will make sure not to put Bif’s complete name on the heading as there is that terrible “Community Standards” that is run by a stupid algorithm.

I photographed her in my studio, in Nina’s house and at the then ill-repute Marble Arch Hotel. Before I took the photographs I invited Bif to the bar. My friend, the owner, Tony Ricci, sat with us and was so struck with her looks that he never noticed all her tattoos when I mentioned them to him later.

I have many wonderful pictures of Bif but there is another connection that I have with her. Both she and my Rosemary had breast cancer and went to the same doctor. Bif was lucky but my Rosemary was not.