Guanajuato, Mexico circa 1975

Lost & Found
 

In the other blog today I wrote about having lost what some would call my signature shot. Now this evening I have looked at the negatives that were lost for a long time and found this one which I shot immediately after that first one. I don't think this one makes the grade and particularly because of the bit of wall on the right hand side. Just to show that one has to take advantage of decisive moments

Guanajuato - Mexico circa 1975

Photographers have an advantage over artists who paint. I cannot understand how those artists survive the fact that they no longer have the painting they sold. We photographers even though some of us are artists (people tell me I am one) keep that original negative, transparency or digital file.

So when a photographer loses a cherished negative, slide or digital file it can be a tragedy.

When we arrived in Vancouver from Mexico City in 1975 I was not able to get a photo job until the new French CBC TV station hired me in 1976/77. By 1978 I was gainfully shooting photographs for Vancouver Magazine. I believe that it was around 1979 that I decided to have a show of my Mexican photographs. In those days restaurants welcomed framed photographs. I had a show in a nearby restaurant to Vancouver Magazine which was on Richards and Davie. One of the framed photographs is what my Victoria friend Gerry Schallie would call it a signature shot.

I took the photograph from the steps of the University of Guanajuato. I was able to shoot it immediately when I saw the man because I knew the sunny 16 rule. I shot it with KodakTri-X at 1/1000 at f-11. My camera was an Asahi Pentax S-3. The lens was a Komura 85mm F-1.8.

Until today I can say I lost that negative. Today in my family files under Mexico before 1975 I found it and what you see here is scan that I did today.

I will never understand Canadians who flock to Porto Vallehrtah (that’s how they pronounce it) to enjoy a beach with margaritas when there are so many lovely cities with culture, etc.

I am joyfull today and I believe this may spur me to return to Guanajuato and take some street photographs.

Palm Sunday - Coyoacán - 1962

I met my Rosemary in Mexico City on December 15^th, 1967.  We were married on February 8, 1968.  We would have been married at least a week before but every time we tried it the judge said he was not authorized as I was an Argentine but Mexican resident while Rosemary was a Canadian tourist. Finally when we were married my mother was not there. She lived in Veracruz and she had travelled for our previous attempts.

The solution was for me to go to the lovely Coyoacán neighbourhood with a bottle of good French cognac and I bribed a judge who had his office in the city square. Since then Coyoacán has been a happy place in my heart

Coyoacán was always an attraction for me. In 1962 when I was just starting to shoot street photographs I had taken a photograph at the door of the main church in the Coyoacán zócalo. What is interesting about the photograph is that if you look on one of the corners you will see the points of a palm. I took it on Palm Sunday.

Without revealing my now true spiritual beliefs, I can state that my religious grandmother inculcated me on the meanings of Roman Catholic doctrine. As a young boy these beliefs were stabilizing. Years later when I was 16 who could have predicted the lightness in my mind after going to confession? Confession with a priest was like going to a psychologist and not paying a cent.

I will never forget that a few days after Time Magazine’s Is God Dead cover on April 6, 1966 I was sitting in the Buenos Aires Zoo reading it by the tiger cage. I was wearing my summer whites Argentine Navy uniform because some Admirals had yet to decide if it was much too cold to change us to the blue uniform. Had I lingered a while I might have run into Jorge Luís Borges who loved tigers as much as I did and would often sit on the very bench I was sitting.

Perhaps my world of comfort died that day that God died.