Judy Brown - Mexico City 1962 - Rosemary Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - Mexico City 1968

Today, 13 Friday 2024, was a pleasant day as I celebrated with Alexandra, Hilary’s birthday which is tomorrow. We went to our fave Italian Restaurant, La Piazza Dario, at the Italian Cultural Centre.

As I looked at the candle on our table I immediately had my idea for today’s blog. It involved two women in my life whom I photographed with just the light of a candle.

The first one was really my first girlfriend. I was 20 and I met her at Mexico City College in Mexico City. Her name was Judy Brown. Even though I was a nerd (before the word had been invented) I remember being daring enough to ask her to take her to Veracruz to meet my mother. On the bus she was reluctant for me to put my head on her lap in our bus. She confessed that she had a boyfriend called Allan in Los Angeles. Her claim to fame was that her father played tennis with Charles Schulz who created Peanuts.

She went back to LA and I never heard from her again. All I have are photographs that I took using an extremely fast film called Agfa Isopan Record with my Asahi Pentax S-3 and a 85mm f-1.8 Komura lens.

In early 1968, after I had married my Rosemary on8 February, I took some photographs of her in the nude. In the contact sheet I spotted some where I had used a candle. The film was some sort of very fast Kodak film.

And that is how the last became my real first.