Felix Candela's El Altillo church in Mexico City

The writer here failed his starting career as an engineer in 1962 because he could not understand what capacitance was so he failed electricity.

Fortunately for me I continued studying philosophy with the eminent Ramón Xirau. I was not keen on Plato but since then I can happily state that I am Platonist. When I take portraits (people do not smile and my subjects stare into my lens), I feel the retracting (from the Latin to remove) of something of their essence. We cannot be exposed to perfection, so Plato stated, but we do get a glimpse of it. A good portrait does just that.

Fortunately, too, a professor called Chicurel gave me a good basis into understanding the calculus and its quirky infinitesimals.

When Leibniz and Newton independently discovered the calculus in the 17th century the first practical use of it involved killing more people.Calculus could predict where a cannon ball would fall with good accuracy.

Calculus, in showing us what the varying slope of a straight line looks like on a graph, brought us the now famous hyperbolic paraboloids sometimes called hypars.

A few months before Arthur Erickson died he was alone at a table in a function presided by Diane Farris. Nobody wanted to sit with him as he had Alzeimer’s. I went to his table and sat down. I told him, “Arthur, our mutual friend Sean Rossiter told me that you were influenced by Mexican/ Spanish arquitect Felix Candela.” Arthur smiled and for the next hour we talked about hypars and calculus. These usually roofs that show that when a straight line has a varying slope,the result is curved roof.

While I was sniffing in my bathroom yesterday I could smell the fact that I had to change the kitty litter. My Rosemary would have told quite before and I would have followed her instructions. I suddenly stopped and noticed her presence.

I don’t believe in spirits or ghosts. How can I explain this presence? Rosemary died on December 9, 2020 and minutes before she died she asked, “Am I dying?” I now believe, using a combination of Plato, Leibniz and Newton, that whiff of essence that I can see when I look into people’s eyes and which can be retracted by my camera does happen. But most of that essence remains in the person. When Rosemary died, her spirit did not completely go away. Some of it, infinitesimally small, has remained.

I felt it.

David Cooper and I started our careers at about the same time in the late 70s at the CBC. He had an expensive device called a blimp in which he inserted his camera. The blimp silenced the noisy shutter. At that point our careers diverged and he went to photograph ballet and theatre. I am most jealous of him as his daughter has taken over his business and he will probably retire soon.

I was never able to convince anyone in my family in the pursuit of photography. I gave Lauren, my youngest granddaughter who is now 23, a Fuji instant camera called an Instax like the one shown in this blog.

Wide Angle Instax taken by Lauren around 8 years ago in our Kerrisdale garden

Thus I will be the first and last photographer in the family. My eldest daughter, who is unmarried, is called Alexandra Waterhouse-Hayward. This means that she and I will be the last of the Waterhouse-Haywards.

On a more happy note, I found this little Instax portrait of me today.I have no idea who took it. Could it have been Lauren?

I like to use the expression “who shaves the barber?” when I explain that since I am usually behind the camera I don’t appear in too many photographs. Having my photograph taken does not bother me in the least. It means I do not have to worry on how to take it.

What I particularly like about this little snap is that I am wearing a soft cashmere scarf that Rosemary gave me. I had and have a big collection of scarves. Since I received it I will not wear any other. Its softness reminds me of Rosemary’s gentle softness and her demeanour.

Rosa 'Emily Carr' 2 July 2025

The obverse side

We live now in the world of influencers who are iconic and stunning and we opine on them by using emojis.

In that last century I used to make fun of my writer friend John Lekich as he liked to use the word invoke in his reviews of films.

Now in this century I will write this blog using two words (associated with each other) which are invoke and conjure.

This lovely red rose, Rosa ‘Emily Carr’, introduced in Morden Manitoba in 2007, is all but unavailable in Vancouver Lower Mainland nurseries. I found it at the UBC Botanical Garden Shop in the Garden (my Rosemary used to work there) five years ago. I cannot imagine how a rose with that name that is hardy across Canada is not better known here.

The scan you see is of the same rose that I scanned on 24 June. It has been in a little vase with water in my kitchen since. That is amazing endurance for a rose.

Rosa 'Emily Carr' & Crambe maritima - 24 June 2025

To me this rose invokes/conjures the face and memory of my departed Rosemary who never saw it bloom. Seeing it on my kitchen counter was a bit like gazing on her face.

Note how lovely the obverse side is.

Will influencers ever know the meaning of obverse?

Rosa 'Emily Carr' 30 June 2025 - Illustration by Graham Walker

The luckiest moment of my life, besides having been born was to spot, from the back, that woman with straight blond hair in a mini skirt and with legs to rival my mother’s. It was sometime in mid December 1967 in Mexico City. A month and a few days later we were married in Coyoacán, Mexico City. We had two children and in 1975 she strongly persuaded me that Mexico was not a place for our young daughters to grow up in. We were to move in our VW Beetle to Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1977 I was an established magazine photographer and between the both of us we manged to buy and move to a house with a large corner garden in 1986. I now live in little house in Kitsilano. I share it with two brother and sister cats. Rosemary died on December 9, 2020. I am financially stable thanks to Rosemary’s handling of our funds.

Through the years I worked with editors, art directors and graphic designers. One in particular is Graham Walker. Together we did quite a few brochures. We frequent avant-garde concerts and those of baroque music.

A few days ago he sent me his lovely design to celebrate Canada Day tomorrow. I decided to do collaboration by scanning my Morden Manitoba 2007 introduction of Rosa ‘Emily Carr’.

This blog is in memory of that woman who was my wife, Rosemary  and a celebration that with the turmoil in our world now, I live in the right place because of her.

Hosta 'Hirao Majesty' 30 June 2025

In 1950 in Buenos Aires I was 8. One day my mother who taught at a private American high school took me to have lunch with one of her students who was Chinese. We were served soup and I immediately noticed the white Chinese spoon. I was drawn (did not know this yet) by its simple and elegant design.

Since then I have equated the spoon with the best of modern Swedish design. 

In the late 80s I was assigned to photograph the UBC anthropology professor (he was accused of several crimes including murder). I wrote about it, (link below) as I had to ask him why the Japanese had copied Chinese characters but not the spoon. His answer was a simple one, “Cultures adopt from other countries only what interests them.”

Cyril Belshaw &the Wondrous Chinese Spoon 

At my door I have a large shine green hosta from Japan called Hirao Majesty. Unlike many other hostas that grow their flowers on scapes (the hosta term for stem) either in clusters at the end or many flowers down the scape, this one has one single and for me extremely elegant flower. It is particularly lovely before it opens.