Friday, March 07, 2008


Every once in a while I read the Daybooks of Edward Weston, particularly the one on Mexico and I am jealous at the descriptions of the women that posed for him in the roof of his Mexico City home. I long for those hot days of Mexico with the long shadows and I long for the women that Weston describes. They were earthy, women of a time before we tried to make them our equals and somehow failed in the process.



But in actual fact I should not feel at all jealous of Weston. I have "had" my women in the photographic sense and one of the best was Chilean Claudia Paez. I photographed her while my Argentine artists friends Nora Patrich and Juan Manuel Sanchez sketched her. We had many sessions. Some were in my studio the others at the Patrich home. Few of those pictures can I show here. In particular I am fond of a series I did with Claudia and her husband who played the wolf to Claudia's Little Red Riding Hood. In the sequence (alas you can only view two of them) the surprised Caperucita Roja turns the tables on the wolf and takes charge of the situation.



Claudia and husband are back in Chile and I long for them coming back. Perhaps I, too would start my Daybook and title it Vancouver II.



Addendum: An email from Claudia on March 9, 2008

Hola!
Que alegría recibir al menos una línea de ti.
Claro q no me molesto. Al contrario, me alaga. Y ojalá más sesiones vengan pronto. Nosotros estamos esperando respuesta de la Embajada por la residencia.

Te mando un abrazo y muchos cariños

Clau