1965 - 1966

Sometimes I believe that inanimate objects have free will. Ample proof is mostly of the digital kind. Digital cameras and cell phones go their way without me initiating their direction. It then becomes difficult to get them back my way.

I also think that sometimes inanimate objects have a way of predicting the future of those involved with them.

ELMA Río Aguapey

After two years in the Argentine Navy I found myself broke as my military pay was the equivalent of 2 US Dollars a month in Argentine pesos.

Because of my over the top feeling of patriotism I had decided to leave Mexico City and do my obligatory conscription in Argentina in 1966. I did not know that while the conscription in the army was one year I had “won the lottery” in the Argentine Navy which amounted to 24 months. Another reason for my going to Buenos Aires was to find my father whom I had not seen since 1953.

How was I going to get back to Mexico where I had lived with my mother? I realized that if I initiated some sort of repatriation, the Argentine bureaucracy might last at least a year.

Next door to my office with the US Naval Advisory Group where I had been a translator and aide to the US Navy Captain, Onofrio Salvia (he was Italian) there was an admiral by the name of Carlos Garzoni. I went to his office and facing him I said,”Permission to talk to the admiral,sir.” I was given permission. I then told him, “I have served my country for two years. My home with my mother is in Mexico. I believe that my country has to serve me.” Garzoni answered, “Conscript you are right.” He picked up the phone and talked to someone. He hung up and told me,  “Tomorrow morning show up at the offices of Lineas Marítimas Argentinas (ELMA a then Argentine Merchant Marine) they will find you a berth in one of their ships."

Contralmirante ARA Carlos Alberto Garzoni

 I did. And a few weeks later I boarded (as the only passenger) a Victory ship called Río Aguapey which was a slow ship that stopped at every port in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, New Orleans and finally in the port of Veracruz. The menu for lunch and dinner every day involved some variation of an Artentine steak.

I had no idea that crossing the Equator in 1966 for the first time, involved an initiation/hazing ceremony. And so I was tied to the yard arm, painted with oil paints, sprayed with seawater and had nasty bandages stuck to my hairy legs. I was given a beautiful certificate that made me officially a Tiburón (shark). The framed and lovely certificate is up on the wall to the left of this monitor in my oficina.
 

It was only about 10 years ago that I found out that my Victory Ship (an improvement of the early WWII Liberty Ships) had been built at the Burrard Shipyards! Edgar Kaiser’s father, Henry Kaiser had pioneered the building of ships (very quickly) which meant that no matter how many of the Liberty Ships were sunk by German submarines in the Atlantic many more took their place.

For me that the Rio Aguapey was built in Canada is a lucky coincidence. Or is it more?

Rosemary & Alexandra - Camellia x williamsii 'Donation' 5 April 2024

Alleyne & Barbara Cook - Rhododenron augustinii 'Marion McDonnell' - 5 April 2024

When I look at the new flowers in my Kitsilano garden I immediately associate them with people. They have faces, faces of dear friends and in most cases the face of Rosemary.

After a harsh winter my Rhodoendron augustinii ‘Marion Mcdonnell’ somehow managed to bloom. The plant was a selection of my friend Alleyne Cook. He named it after our mutual friend Marion McDonnell who was famous for having introduced to Vancouver the Blue Himalayan Poppy Meconopsis betonicifolia. Cook was convinced his rhodo selection had blue flowers. Few of us ever argued that the flowers were more on the purple side.

Rosemary’s favourite camellia, Camellia x williamsii ‘Donation’ is in full bloom. Were she around she would have smiled lots.

Here I have combined the camellia with a photograph hanging outside my bedroom. I shot it at the Desierto de Altar in Northern Mexico on our way to Vancouver in 1975. She is here with our eldest daughter Alexandra. The perspective of the photograph has always wowed me as we could not tell if the mountains were far away or that they were just low. Out of the frame would be our blue VW Beetle.

All these years later I have a constant disconnection with the idea that both Rosemary and Alleyne Cook were alive (Cook’s wife Barbara is 98 and I spoke to her today and she is just fine).

My guess is that most people these days have few family portraits on the wall and they depend on a not often looked at family album. In my situation, the many largish portraits on the walls haunt me as I go up and down the stairs or when I stare at the ones in my bedroom. I wonder if being a portrait photographer has its downs?

For me it all began in 1950 at the Lincoln Library in Buenos Aires. I was 8. The library was run by the United States Information Agency (spies!). I looked into an American Heritage book that featured dead soldiers taken by Timothy O’Sullivan during the American Civil War. I stared at the photographs and thought, “These soldiers at one time were alive. They are dead here and they look much like the men walking outside on Calle Florida.”

I have never ceased to think about that hinge between life and death.

Rosemary would say to me often, “You are bored. Go and write a blog.” And I would. Now without her and 6062 blogs (including this one) later, I am at it. My blogs, feeding my cats, walking Niño around the block, when weather permits, and talking to my two daughters give me a reason to persist in my whim to remain alive.

I have written before that I am not usually blocked in writing every day and that in a past, when journalism was alive, I could have written a daily column, no sweat.

Today I had to force myself to go to my oficina and think (coldly) about a blog. I came up with this one as thanks to Bill Richardson’s concept of Bunny Watson, I am able to bring elements together that do not seem to have anything in common. Let me begin.

Sometime around 1977 Kodak introduced a Special Order SO-410 that was designed to be used for solar flare photography. Because this b+w film had an unusual sensitivity to red, portrait photographers knew that the film would make human skin luminous and facial flaws would be diminished. I used this film with fabulous results.

Kodak noticed the unusual use of this film and re-introduced it as SO-115. I used it with fabulous results.

Kodak was overwhelmed with orders for that film so they re-introduced it as Technical Pan Film and offered it not only in 35mm but in the 120 format. I used it with fabulous results.

In the late 90s we had in Vancouver a good photographic gallery called The Exposure Gallery. They had themed/group shows. I participated in all of them. One was to shoot with a primitive camera.

So I used a 120 film format German Gevabox. I called up Virve Reid. I had photographed this lovely woman many times. She had been the first Canadian Playboy Playmate with red hair. Amazingly a woman who now was older and had a Rubenesque body agreed that I photograph her. And so I used the world’s then sharpest film imaginable with the Gevabox. Because there was no connection in the camera  for flash I darkened my studio, used the B shutter (the shutter stays open until you click it for a second time) and shot my flash many times as the film’s sensitivity of 25 ISO was very low.

The result was a lovely photograph. My friend Ian Martin chose the photograph to convert it into a photogravure. What you see inside the frame here is Martin’s photogravure. Some years ago Martin disappeared into Washington State and my guess is that he is gone.

In my Virve Reid files I found the fax that I originally sent to Ian Martin. The date is clearly seen, 01/28/92, time 10:48 in the evening.

What is ultimately lots of fun for me (it is a wonderful distraction to boredom) is to arrange the elements on my scanner to illustrate this blog.

Of course I have to be careful in this 21^st century not to show stuff that would go against “community standards”!

Béatrice Larrivée & Noa Lee Ashkenazi  - August 2023

One of my earliest memories is of my mother telling me that when she and my father went dancing in clubs on Leandro N. Alem in Buenos Aires everybody would stop to watch them dance the tango. “Alex, one day you will dance as well as your father.”

That never happened. In high school in Austin, Texas, I was a wall flower. Somehow I managed to have one girlfriend who did not mind my two left feet.

Rosemary and I tried to learn the Argentine tango in Vancouver. She quit because we were always in conflict as to who was the worst dancer. I became an efficient ( and no more) tango dancer. My father would have remained silent had he seen me dance.

Our two daughters took ballet and quit. Our two granddaughters stayed longer but quit in the end.

Ours is not a dancer family.

When I met up with Evelyn Hart in 1995 I fell for her and for ballet. When our youngest daughter Lauren danced at the Arts Umbrella Dance Company for 6 years I was given carte blanche to photograph dancers backstage and anywhere else. I loved the opportunity.

I believe I became a very good dance photographer. It has been in the last 10 years that thanks to my digital Fuji X-E1 and X-E2 that I was able to experiment and perfect what I call dance swirls. Since I am no longer working for non existing magazines I don’t have to take sharp photographs to identify the dancers.

But I have to explain that the dance system Gaga that these two dancers performed involves a blend of movement with theatrics. The expressions on their faces are important. That is lost in m swirls and blurs.

Swirls 

Blurs

I think I am on a roll and at my age of 81 I am being invited to take photographs at Arts Umbrella in May. This is exciting and I think I feel a bit useful!