Rosa 'Ketchup & Mustard' & Hosta 'Wheee!' 12 July 2025

My Rosemary, whose interest in gardening transferred to me (with  some not so gentle pushing), taught me from the beginning to learn the proper botanical name of our plants. Because my first interest began with hostas I understood her. As a member of the American Hosta Society I found out that my fellow members were finicky and persnickety about using the correct nomenclature of their plants.

Another reason for using botanical names is that you are precise and if you use a common name confusions happen.

And so the Western Red Cedar in our former garden in my mind became a Thuja plicata. In botanical names that has to be written in italics. If the plant is a cultivar (usually because of human intervention and hybridizing) the name is not in italics and it is between single quotes.

What you see in the scan today is Hosta ‘Wheee!’ and Rosa ‘Ketchup & Mustard’. Those names are funny and don’t sound as complicated as the botanical name of a Douglas Fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii.

Rosemary was not alive to smile at the name of the two plants in this blog. What is interesting is that the hosta is the first plant (anywhere in the world) with an exclamation sign as part of its name. When I smell this rose somehow my imagination makes it seem like there is some Heinz in it.

Addendum: My friend Clarence Falstad, a member of the American Hosta Society who works for the very good Michigan nursery Walters Gardens and is in charge with patenting new plants has told me that Canada has rejected the name of Hosta 'Wheee!' because of its exclamation mark.

Transprency and Print

Two Transparencies

The term "pushing the envelope" originally comes from the field of aviation. It is a reference to the flyable portion of the atmosphere that envelopes the earth. Pilots would push the envelope when they were testing the speed or elevation limits of new aircraft. The term entered the mainstream by way of Tom Wolfe's novel The Right Stuff.

For about 3 years I have been using the technique that I call (with a smile) “Scanner negative sandwiches without mayonnaise”. I put one negative, be it colour or b+w, or a slide, on top of each other and scan them together with my Epson Perfection V700 Photo scanner. The results are especially good if the negatives, etc are from the same photo session.

Scanner Negative Sandwiches Without Mayonnaise   

I have been made aware that I can do this with Photoshop Layers. I opt for the more mechanical one. But then, what do I do with digital photographs if I cannot scan them and I will not do layers?

In the middle of the night, one night ago, I had a dream that started with “The Theremin Man”.  The Theremin Man is Stephen Hamm the former bass player of the notorious punk band Slow. On the 10^th of December of 2022 I was contacted by Hamm who wanted me to take some photographs of him to help promote him. He never did use my photographs in which I used my digital Fuji X-E3 and lit him with my ProPhoto ring flash.

Zemblanity, Serendipity & a Slow Christmas 

L to R - Christian Thorvaldson, Steven Hamm, Ziggy Sigmund, Terry Russell & Thomas Anselmi

In the dream I came up with the idea of making two inkjet transparencies (slides) of two of the photographs and scanning them together with one flipped. The I used another technique of printing one of them and scanning it with the transparency.

I am happy with the results happy to keep on innovating using the technology of the 20^th century (my scanner and 20-year-old Photoshop 8 ) with the advances of this century, my Fuji X-E3 and the availability of that wonderful inkjet paper and transparency printed on my very good Epson P700 printer.

Rosemary & Alexandra

 

Sometime in the early 80s, Carole Taylor posed for me in one of the corridors of the CBC on Hamilton Street. I pointed my camera and thought, “If only she would tilt her head a tad to the left.” Like magic she did that and followed all my other posing thoughts. For years I told everybody she was the easiest and best woman to face my camera.

Tonight, now 11 July 2025, while in bed, I suddenly had the realization that my Rosemary, just like Taylor, could divine my thoughts. I was simply too blind to figure it out. The two framed photographs that I have scanned together are some of my most favourite portraits that in Spanish we call “instantáneas” or grab shots. I gave no instructions. In the Veracruz norte (a big wind) I lucked out in 1968 with my Pentax S-3 and Kodak Tri-X. In the second photograph, circa 1973 taken in Arboledas, Estado de México in our nearby park “Los Bebederos” designed by famous Mexican architect Luis Barragan I again just pressed the shutter.

Now in embarrassing retrospect I know that I never had to tell Rosemary how to pose. I just waited and clicked the shutter.

Rosemary was the first woman I ever photographed nude. This was in 1969. Then for years I collected photographs of as many women that would face my camera with nothing on.

Thinking hard, I now also know that I learned to be a good portrait photographer because I had an excellent muse/mentor.

I will regret until oblivion takes me, that I never did point my camera at Rosemary much more than I did. In Mexico they would say, “Alex eres un pendejo.” In my Buenos Aires it would be, “Alex sos un pelotudo.”

Yes, to both!

And thinking hard I also know that I learned be a good portrait photographer because I had an excellent muse/mentor.

Larry Welna - June 14 2024

There is an obsessive custom I inherited from my Grandfather Don Tirso de Irureta Goyena and my Rosemary. This is to neaten up our home and clean it thoroughly before a guest comes. Tomorrow I am being visited Larry Welna the digital genius of the Vancouver Rose Society. I was particularly keen on cleaning up my oficina and studio. The oficina floor was littered with rose petals, their leaves, hosta leaves and their flowers.

I was particular in doing the oficina as I planed to take a portrait of Larry using my one-shot-gross underexposure technique with my Fuji X-E3. I checked my One Shot Fuji Holding Folder and there he was.

Something else happened when I picked up my oficina. On one side wall I saw the empty 16x20 Agfa Brovira pack. It was a fine archival b+w photographic paper. I was going to throw it away. And then I changed my mind when I noticed the two Kodak manuals that were so useful with my photography in that past century. Had I thrown it away it would almost mean that I would be closing a door to a century that made me the good photography that I may still be.

My Portland friendm Curtis Daily called me today and asked me if I had ever used a deep green filter. He had just purchased two.

I told him that Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski was facing me at a room of the Hotel Vancouver in October 1997. I had been assigned by the Globe and Mail. The stellar arts reporter Christopher Dafoe was there. I had loaded my Mamiya RB-67 with Ilford FP-4 Plus’. I had set up some heavy duty grid-spot. One was aimed at his face the other was a hair light from the back.

Krzysztof Kieślowski  - October 1994

 

I was ready. The man sat down. It was then that I removed my dark green filter from my camera bag and attached it to the Mamiya. It was then that with a smile on his face he said, “Because I also shoot parts of my films I know exactly what you are going to do with me. You are going to make me look older.

To this day I consider myself lucky that Kieślowski faced me with my green filter.

Rosa 'Mrs. Oakley Fisher' & Hosta 'Midas Touch' - 8 July 2025

Rebecca Stewart

One of the most talented human beings I have ever met is my oldest granddaughter Rebecca who is now about to be 28. Presently she has lost her way. I have no doubt in my mind that soon she will be aware of her multiple talents and will become the stellar woman she has to be.

I began to understand that talent of hers once when we were in our Kerrisdale garden. She may have been 8. I asked her, “Can I blindfold you? I want to do an experiment.” I then cut 10 different roses and put them to her nose. Astoundingly she was able to identify all 10 by scent alone.

There is something about her gaze when I photograph her that has no parallel except with that of her younger sister Lauren. It is almost as they had Superman X-ray eyes.

Some years ago we watched Charlie Chaplin and Claire Bloom in the film Limelight. Lauren indicated she wanted to be photographed with Claire Bloom’s ballerina makeup. Rebecca performed not only with the makeup but did the styling. All I had to do was to click the shutter

Lauren Stewart

 It is for all those reasons that I think that Rebecca has that Midas touch and it is why I have scanned Hosta ‘Midas Touch’ with the rose that since I first photographed Rebecca with is now Rebecca’s rose.