Cutting Edge & Anathema to Retirement

 

Many of my peer photographers go to the Gulf Islands and retire. In Spanish to retire it to jubilar. The root is júbilo which translates to an enthusiastic  jubilation.

In that other century I hated going to photograph Canadian Pacific Limited retirements. I would complain to Rosemary who would look at me with “we need the money” eyes. These men would be American-style roasted. One was given a rocking chair, another a job jar to put in the kitchen so his wife would write little notes on tasks he was obliged to do.

At my age of 83 the concept of retirement from my photography, scanning and writing these blogs is anathema.

Ever since my Argentine mentor artist  Juan Manuel Sácnchez pointed out and convinced me that there was an artist in me, the idea of quitting and watching TV, is something I will not consider.

I may be lucky in that my vision is very good so I can sit in front of monitor and fix the dust spots of my plant scans.

In that other century the magazine art directors I had to face were always pushing me to take my photographs in some different way. They liked the word cutting edge.

Here are three that I believe are out of the ordinary (cutting edge perhaps?).

In one of them, I pointed my Mamiya RB-67 at Courtenay who was on the opposite wall of my studio. In front of the Mamiya, I had my iPhone3G in a bracket on a tripod. I then focused and took a picture with my Fuji X-E1 of  what I could see looking down on the Mamiya viewfinder.