A THOUSAND WORDS - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's blog on pictures, plants, politics and whatever else is on his mind.




 

A Peripatetic Charles Campbell, A Restless Ray Mah & Hilary's Red Ball Nose
Sunday, February 08, 2009



Peripatetic editor Charles Campbell was summarily fired from the Georgia Straight in January 1998. he went to work for the Vancouver Sun. By May he had landed on his feet and he was the editor of a new Thursday Vancouver Sum magazine called Queue. When my wife Rosemary saw it (in a rare lapse of her inability to like almost anything) she declared, "Charles has his magazine." That first issue (May 21 -28) featured a last page little essay called Rear Window. Campbell had told me once that he had conceived of this section thinking of my extensive files. The purpose of Rear Window was to relate some Vancouver event of the past to a present situation. Until Queue finally died some years later I had contributed many essays and pictures. This first one (written in the third person, and this was dropped for the subsequent Rear Windows), which featured a picture I had taken of my daughter Hilary which was used for a poster of the 1982 Vancouver Children's Festival read:



In 1982, the heady days of the big-budget variety shows in the CBC Vancouver Studios 40 and 41 were over. CBC graphic designer Ray Mah was getting restless, and he began to freelance. One of his first projects was the 1982 Vancouver International Children's Festival. He called a photographer, Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, who had taken photos of Rene Simard for one of those CBC variety shows. To this day Waterhouse-Hayward doesn't if he was hired because of his own talents or because Mah had gotten a glimpse of his 10-year-old daughter, whose crooked smile he thought was perfect for the project. The picture was taken in Waterhouse-Hayward’s basement, where he rigged a sheet to mimic the folds of a kid peeking out from behind a festival tent. Hilary is now 26, but some things haven't changed. Her 10-month-old daughter Rebecca, has the same crooked smile, the one she inherited from her grandfather.



To this I can only add that I miss the fact that so many events from our Vancouver past are now so sadly forgotten and few publications go beyond a rosy nostalgia without the perspicacity of Campbell's knowledge that the past has meaning when interpreted with the present.



I took the first picture of Hilary here at a bus stop on Willingdon in Burnaby and very close to Lougheed Highway. Ray May is still restless and would perhaps want to re-design my business card which he designed sometime in 1982. When he broaches the subject I tell him that his design was so timeless that even today when I produce my card people ask.




     

Previous Posts
Ale & Hilary - Active Pass To Mayne Island

Focus In The Darkroom

Longing Is Not Nostalgia But It Is As Sweet

The Dinoscopus & John M. Straney

That Arriflex From Leo's

Robert Altman - A Cornet & A Bb Clarinet

Bank of British Columbia - Lost & Found

Stephen Drake - Odd Man

The Look Of Music

Hot Radio & Two Pauls (Grant and Luchkow)



Archives
January 2006

February 2006

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

June 2006

July 2006

August 2006

September 2006

October 2006

November 2006

December 2006

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

April 2007

May 2007

June 2007

July 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008

January 2009

February 2009

March 2009

April 2009

May 2009

June 2009

July 2009

August 2009

September 2009

October 2009

November 2009

December 2009

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010