Samantha Rae

Gafas is an early 20th century word for glasses in Spanish

 One of the learning advantages of working as a free-lance photographer for Vancouver Magazine beginning in the late 70s was that art director Rick Staehling never really pigeonholed me into just being a portrait photographer. Once, almost apologetically he assigned me to photograph sewing machines. The helped in making me a tad more humble.

When he assigned me to take photographs of a high-end optical shop on Robson, Optique 2000 I did something I often did in the 80s. I was friends with many ecdysiasts (strippers) and I loved using them as models as they would be paid to not remove their clothes. I remember one of the dancers here. She had very long hair and part of her act was to tease her bum with it. The other dancer was one of my faves even though I have now forgotten her name as she had a short career and disappeared. To me she resembled Gene Tierney.

When Rick saw these photographs he asked me, "Where did you get these models? I have not seen any of them." I told him, "Over a beer I can show you where they work."

While I was never picked to shoot once except once, I believe I wasn’t all that bad at it. 

Artropolis - My Only Fashion Shoot