Left Dan Rutledge - Right John Armstrong - August 1987

My friend Ian McGuffie keeps telling me that we were both lucky to have been born in that other century.  He says we won the cosmic lottery.

Few know my age could boast that in Vancouver since 1977 I have worked at something I liked until recently. I am now 83 and retired from taking photographs and writing for magazines and newspapers.

Every once in a while I get upset when I cannot find my original negs or slides. In the August 1987 writer John Lekich wrote an article for Western Living called Changing. No publication would now hire anybody to write such a special essay.

I can assert that at the time the art director at Western Living Magazine was Chris Dahl and he told me, “Alex do something unusual. Use mirrors for these photographs.”

The missing negatives (I photographed 3 subjects, clinical psychologist Brian Ferris on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery and therapist Dan Rutley, on the roof of the Vancouver Art Gallery) are those of Modernettes singer John Armstrong on Robson Street. John Lekich up in a building pointed a mirror on Armstrong’s face.

Chris Dahl further told me, “Alex you print these yourself and make them 11x14.” Luckily I do have the one of John Armstrong.

The main reason I have these photographs here is to explain what is missing with photographers in this century. They don’t have pushy art directors like Chris Dahl that helped me excel in my job.