Molly Parker & Lynne Stopkevich - March 1997

Of late I have pleasantly noted that my Lillooet daughter Alexandra and my Burnaby daughter Hilary call each other every day. I call this sisterly bonding. It was only when I was 21 that I finally met a half-brother in Buenos Aires. The closest I have arrived at the concept of bonding was the very close relationship I had with my wife Rosemary. It all began when we were married in February 1968 and continued until she died in Dec 2020.

In 1978 when I had been doing photography work at Vancouver Magazine I was invited to a monthly reunion of contributors that was called a pissup. It was in one of them that I met a tall photographer with a radio voice called James La Bounty. When I asked him what kind of photography he did he answered, “I do conceptual portraiture.” I thought he was a pretentious SOB but I soon began to understand what he was talking about.

At first you faced an art director who gave you your assignment with some sort of explanation of what was to be done. This soon came with the questionable improvement of a fax. Then like magic I would receive faxed manuscripts of the articles I had to illustrate. It was then when I really began that interesting procedure of finding a concept for the job at hand.

With Globe and Mail reporter Christopher Dafow I saw a film called Kissed. After seeing it I had an idea for a concept. I had actress Molly Parker and director Lynne Stopkevich come to my studio. I wanted to convey their bonding.

When film director Lynne Stopkevich and actor Molly Parker walked into my studio on September 24, 2000 I had only one mission and that was to explain with one photograph my suspicion that a special bond existed between them. This bond had allowed them to make Kissed and the then yet-to-be released Suspicious River. Both films conveyed to me an almost alien point of view. I realized that this disturbing yet refreshing feeling was that both films were made with a woman’s point of view. I had been disappointed in the past by the films of American director Katheryn Bigelow as well as those by Nora Ephron. Molly Parker’s performance in Suspicious River is so astounding that I wanted to show in a photograph the invisible bond that must exist between the two women.

No matter what I tried I wasn’t getting anywhere. I told them to rest. At that point I saw them get really close. I told them to not move and I shot a Polaroid. I then shot it with film.

To me the result conveys that special bonding between women. The concept did not come from thought but from observing an instant. I wonder what James La Bounty would have done.

The photograph in the scan here was not the one that the Globe ran. I had a further concept wich involved going to Mountain View Cemetery as the film Kissed was about burying little animals and from there to a funereal human connection.