Accidentally black © by adrian Photographic memory: Episode One

It's 1972, I'm working in the basement of the studio/photo-finishing plant I run. Bill my friend and co-worker comes downstairs looking ashen faced and shaken. He says "There are two really serious looking black guys upstairs. They want to talk to the owner."

I go upstairs to the reception room, and rounding the corner see that Bill has not exaggerated. Two very intense looking guys are sitting there, both dressed in tight black suits, slim briefcases on their laps. These guys are definitely not Jehovah's witnesses. As I enter and say "Hello, I'm the owner." they stand simultaneously. It is immediately apparent there will be no hearty handshakes or "Hello's." to be had from this crew.

One of them walks over to the reception desk, flattens his briefcase, opens and starts rummaging thru it. The case is too small to hold a baseball bat. What is he looking for? Why did I come to work today?

The other walks up to me, very close, inches from me, into my space. Very intimidating. I intentionally move two inches closer to him, It's a defense mechanism I've always used when people try to crowd me. I think this lets them know I get their body language and it won't work on me. He almost smiles as he hands me his business card and says simply, "Don't you think it's about time you start advertising with us?" The card I've been handed has "Contrast" written across it.

Contrast is the name of a militant black newspaper in Toronto during the 70's. These are the days of the Black Power movement, Black Panthers, Black & Proud, and everything is "Soul".

These guys are not here to give me a sales pitch. In some strange way I understand I've just been invited. Normally, this would be the simplest of business decisions, advertise. This is different than normally. I would be reaching a market I knew nothing about and could never have had the audacity to consider. Taking this step alters much of the next twenty or so years of my life.

Listen to this...

I ran a photo-finishing company, had a staff of four and a very crowded house. I decided to move everything out of the house, and at the same time I would throw a little studio into the new location to play in. Photography for me is theater, all smoke and mirrors. Point a camera at most people, and they will smile or take their clothes off, or both, at the first hint, in an instant. What great fun!

I dug up some of my old sample photos and put them in the window. The early seventies in Toronto was the beginning of a large migration of immigrants from the West Indies and several African countries. In a short time, the black population grew to over two hundred and fifty thousand people. So, I found the requisite token black person shot I had, and added that to the window.

Photography is one of the few businesses that attracts exactly what you display. If I put pictures of little old ladies in my window, that's what will come inside. Babies in the window, that's what I'll get. Nothing could be simpler. It's like fly paper. What I didn't know, was that for most photographers, black people are a difficult photographic challenge. I had often heard that black people were hard to photograph, but I swear, I always thought it was some kind of goofy racial thing someone thought up, but it's true. It's also pretty obvious if you think about it, white objects reflect light, black objects absorb it. Put a dark subject on a dark background in a photo, and if not properly lit, they will likely disappear.

I almost always use dark backgrounds in my work, that's what appeals to me.

So, the token black person I put in the window wasn't part of any plan, it was just a simple portrait of a black lady. I had used a dark background in the shot, as is my fashion, and she showed up plain as day. I didn't consider for a moment there was anything unusual about it.

Soon, there were various clusters of black people outside the window talking amongst themselves about this shot. I'm still amazed this one photo started it all. This was "the face that launched a thousand ... " (oops, sorry, wrong story).

In the seventies in Toronto, we didn't have the dreadful gangs that are around these days, but it was still pretty unnerving to have a group of black people gathered about and looking into my studio. It was all new, and when they started coming in for portraits, it was a struggle for them as well as myself. Many of these early immigrants had heavy accents and often spoke the Patois dialect, something I certainly wasn't used to, and at first I had great difficulty understanding them.

I make few decisions in my life with any thought about what the final destination or outcome will be. Climax simply doesn't interest me, never did. I'm far more interested in what I will discover on the trip to anywhere, not what I will find at destinations end. When the West Indians and blacks from other countries started showing up, and then Contrast invited me in, I signed on for the trip.

When I began this section of my life, if there was a group of black guys outside my studio window I would be wary. When I finished, if there was a group of white guys outside my studio window, I would be wary. Everything in my life eventually changed from what I had previously known, and turned completely around. Absolutely everything I knew became accidentally black.

The first ads were simple, nothing gaudy. I also advertised in a publication called Spear, which had a more militant approach to the thorny issue of our different cultures. Eventually I ran ads in the other black papers, Share, and then, Pride.

Black people started coming in for portraits. Saturdays they would line up outside, I would shoot twenty or more sittings a day. Prior to this, I would shoot a couple of sittings a week. Initially they were new immigrants and would come in wanting shots of their new watch, holding their first paycheck, anything, and everything, to send back home. They were having fun, and so was I.

White people would come in acting like they were at the dentists. Explain the photo being made was to shut up some relative they hadn't seen in years, and they didn't want to be here. I was instructed to just get it over with quickly so they could get back to their lives.

The blacks were consistently exciting and yes, colourful. Many would show up in outrageous costumes and plumage. This was during the time that the "hip" all dressed in flamboyant velvet suits, innovative hats, goofy platform shoes and that incredible afro hair cut of the time. If a group came in and I set up a pose they liked, everybody would spontaneously clap to show their approval. There was a "black is beautiful" mentality and they wanted me to capture the history of it.

During this period I began dressing pretty outrageously myself. Sort of a cross between early beatnik and late hippie. Long great frocks, beads, very long hair. I've always been a suit and tie man when shooting weddings, so I would make exceptions for that. The long hair with a suit was theater unto itself.

The whites on the other hand were bland and boring. They never hesitated to display how much they hated every minute of what was happening. The blacks I encountered were visceral. Communication was not tainted by hidden meanings. No euphemisms here, everything was direct, emotional and on the surface. It didn't take long to realize I had stumbled into an area that my Italian temperament was more than suited to, this was definitely where I belonged.

At the same time it was an enormous culture shock. Sometime scary. I would shoot a wedding, at the reception there would be a huge gathering and I would be the only white boy in sight. I would attend raucous church services similar to what I had seen only in newsreels, and there I was, up at the alter, recording it. In the beginning it was very weird, no question about it. For them too, I guess.

Seeing as I stuck out so much, everybody quickly got used to the strange white guy with goatee and long grey hair. As I said, photography for me is theater, I am fast on my feet and usually put on a pretty good show. I always do my best to entertain my clients, that way I know they will go out of their way to entertain me, for the camera. Soon the black papers started hiring me to shoot some of their work, and occasionally they would print stories about me. I was welcomed in.

Photography for me is magic, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. With black people, for me, it almost always worked. It's about communication, not equipment, and once I got the rhythm of the speech and the personalities right, it easily fell into place.

I closed the photo-finishing section of my business and moved the studio to the middle of what was then the "black section" of town, Bathurst and Dupont Street.

I started advertising on black radio programs, and began using the catch phrase, "The Almost Soul studio" in my ads. It was nervy and all very presumptuous. I now used black people exclusively for samples, with one token white person in the window. We joked that the only time a white person came into my studio was if they needed change for the parking meter. As I said, all unplanned and very weird.

As the community expanded and changed, I moved my studio to follow it. I moved to Jane & Lawrence Ave., and then eventually settled down on Eglinton at Oakwood Ave. This area is still a hub of black activity in Toronto.

For the reader that may have been wondering if I would ever get to it, yes, there were the women. Up till then in my life, my contact with black women had been by way of National Geographic magazine. Well, I found out that in real life, they are way more fun than in the magazine. Who knew?

Photographers get turned on by various things. Some of us get excited about buildings, hillsides, rocks, babies, horses, whatever. Black women photographically intoxicate me. I can't explain it, would be a fool to try. They just knock my socks off. Doesn't matter what shape, how old, how tall or any of that stuff, many just seem to have an attitude that drives me nuts. More fun!

I don't know if I drove them nuts too, but for many years almost all my female companions were black. It was just a natural progression of my life at that time. All the people I knew, met, worked with and saw on a daily basis were black, so naturally that's where I would meet my lovers. Eventually I started a semi-permanent relationship with the sister of a black lady that worked in one of my studios, and we lived together for quite some time.

Later, into the 80's, the area around Eglinton and Oakwood Ave., started to get run down. The shops nearby were deteriorating, taxes were becoming unmanageable, and that section of Toronto temporarily fell apart, so it became time to move on.

Many clients followed me to my new location on Bloor Street West, but it was never quite the same as the intense activity during that twenty year hit. By that time, I had also realized that although it might be initially distasteful, I may as well try to get used to doing business with, and taking money from, the white folk...

They talked a little different than me, but I figured in time I might get used to the idiom of their speech patterns and be able to learn how to deal with them. I even began to notice that some of their white women didn't look too bad either. Not as much "Junk in the Trunk" as I was familiar with, but isn't there something about "a change is as good as a rest".

The squirrel whisperer © by adrian Episode one: Lurch

I can't think of any easy way to tell you this, I've twisted it about in my mind for days trying to find the words that could even come close to explaining it. I can think of nothing to prepare you. You've heard the expression "horse whisperer", there was a book, followed by a movie. Well, this is so much worse. Here it is then, do with it as you will.

I am a squirrel whisperer!

Really, everything is fine, I've taken my meds today, no need to worry, it's simply not that big a deal. It just happens that's what I am. Lord knows, I didn't choose this, it's just been there all my life. I found this out when I was very young. The discovery was sort of like when you're trying to explain something to someone who doesn't speak your language, there is always much gesturing and carrying on, and all of a sudden everybody "gets it". There are smiles all around, sometimes even laughter, and everybody feels good... same thing, just like that, that's exactly how it happened.

Listen to this...

I am known in the squirrel population as Big Grey, I have occasionally heard them refer to me behind muffled snickers as Big Grey Two Legs, I assure you, squirrels are not without humour.

I have lived with three different squirrels in my lifetime. If you don't understand, you may think I mean three squirrels have lived with me. You are confused, if there are squirrels in your house, apartment, or life, you live with them, not the other way round. I don't jump from branch to branch, but even lately I have spent time up ladders in trees, feeding and talking to a few of them.

This story is about Lurch. I did not live with Lurch, but we eventually became unbelievable friends.

I was cutting some wood in the backyard when I saw my bride Linda coming down the driveway. She was in obvious distress and crying. Before I could ask, she cried out, "It's Todd, he's been hit by a car." Todd was the name we had given one of the local young grey squirrels that frequent our back porch for peanut handouts. "He's lying in the middle of the road." she said. I comforted her as best I could, got some gloves and a bag and suggested we should pick him up and bury him.

We went down the block to where he lay, and I realized as we got closer it wasn't Todd, but an older grey squirrel we had never seen before. His back end had been crushed and he was still alive. I put on the gloves, went over, picked him up and put him in the bag, we then walked home with him. I didn't look at him closely until we got home. He was a mess. Not only his back, but his jaw was also damaged. My original thought was to finish him off to stop him from suffering more. In theory, that's always a good plan, but much harder to do in actual practice. However, he didn't seem to be in actual pain, just numb and in shock.

I ended up wrapping him in blankets, putting him in a container and leaving him in our garden shed for the night. It was early November, still warm, so the weather was not a factor. He was only able to lie on his side, and I went out to him frequently in the night, petted him and fed him bits of liquid food from an eyedropper. Eventually I went to bed, assuming that in the morning I would find him dead and that would be the end of it.

Next morning he was alert and still very much alive, but still only able to lie on his side.

In Toronto, and many other cities, we have an amazing volunteer animal rescue hospital that will take in injured wild animals and care for them. I arranged to bring this squirrel there. When we arrived, there were many questions about where he was found etc., because if an animal recovers they like to release them near where they originally lived. They also offered to call me and let me know if he didn't make it if I wanted, I didn't, and was done with it.

In late December during a snow storm, I looked out in the backyard and saw an old grey squirrel stumbling across my porch. I grabbed some peanuts, slipped on a jacket and went out. I crouched down to see if he would take a peanut and he looked at me for a moment and then staggered over, crawled up my pant leg and snuggled into my lap for protection from the storm. I could see that most of the fur on his back and belly had been shaved off, and what seemed to be stitches ran down his back. This squirrel looked as if he had just come back from a surgical procedure. He stayed in my lap about ten minutes, eating and warming up and then crawled off and went out into the storm.

Linda tried to convince me this had to be the same squirrel we had taken to the hospital, but I refused to believe it. The chance that squirrel had even lived was beyond possibility as far as I was concerned. I could not offer any reasonable explanation for this experience, but St. Francis of the elders didn’t fit my profile either. The next five days were bitterly cold, and we assumed a squirrel with little fur wouldn't have much chance of survival.

I built a squirrel house about twenty feet up a tree in my backyard a few years ago in an as yet unwritten story. I'm in my yard two weeks after I fed the squirrel on the porch, and see an old weathered squirrel looking out the doorway of that house. As soon as he sees me he starts to come out the opening and promptly falls to the ground, landing in a snow bank. He gets up, staggers over to me, and crawls onto my lap. Linda brings us some walnuts and I feed them to him. Twice the next day when I go outside he comes to the edge of the squirrel house doorway, falls to the ground, staggers over to me, and gets on my lap.

It's pretty obvious by now that the squirrel house needs renovation, and a piece of wood is salvaged from a corner of the yard so I can add a porch for him to better navigate. I've decided that if I screw a flat piece of wood to the bottom of the house that will jut out six inches or so in front, he will have a ledge to help him get oriented when he tries to leave it.

Even though it's snowing, I set a ladder against the tree and start up with tools and wood at the ready.

I get up to the house and he sticks his face out it's door and starts watching what I'm doing. He looks at me incredulously, almost as if he can't believe it took me so long to figure out what he needed. He is six inches from my face, staring at me as I start to screw this board onto the bottom of the house he’s sitting in.

This is really weird, even for a nutbar like me. I haven't taken LSD in years, I'm weeks away from receiving my first Old Age Pension check. I'm twenty feet up a tree in a snowstorm, casually explaining to a wild squirrel what I'm doing, while he's watching me like he's the family pet. I wonder if he will offer to hold my screwdriver for me. While this is going on, from inside the house, I can hear another squirrel that I didn't know was there, squawking. Scolding him, or us. In my head I hear Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane fame singing, "Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call." I'm a star in my own Alice in Wonderland movie.

When I finish and return to the ground, I comment to Linda, "I wonder how the neighbours feel about the harmless, crazy long hair down the street now."

The porch doesn't help much. He now comes out on the porch, but because his hind quarters are still not in great shape, his balance is dreadful. Every time he tries to sit up or scratch, he falls over and to the ground. I just keep shoveling as much snow as I can around the base of the tree to help break his fall. Linda and I have decided that in view of his constant staggering and falling, we will name him Lurch. We also decide it will be emotionally easier on us to refer to his falls as jumping, instead of falling, as in "Oh look, Lurch just jumped out of the tree again."

I have by now finally conceded this is indeed the squirrel that had been run over a few months ago. The body shaving has obviously been done professionally, and there are definite stitches left over from some delicate operation he must have been given. His complete disinterest that I am a different species also suggests that he has gotten very used to dealing with people in his two months of rehabilitation.

As the Winter went on he got progressively better at navigating the porch, he still jumped, but not as much, his upper body was very strong and he developed an incredible ability to grab on the edge of the porch when he slipped, and pull himself back up. It was not uncommon to look out and see him dangling from the edge, he would look like an athlete doing his pull-up exercises as he dragged himself back to the safety of the flat surface. He still had a lot of trouble climbing back up the tree, so I built what we referred to as a wheelchair ramp for him that went from the bushes to the tree, and he started using that with great success.

Most mornings I would go out and sit on the steps of our back porch and he would come out of the house and down the tree to visit. I would feed him, and he would lean against me for balance as he ate. Sometime he would stay a bit when finished eating and I would pet him and rub his ears. Almost every afternoon at about three o'clock we would repeat the same dance.

In the spring his fur began to grow back. He still staggered about and fell over constantly but he started to look like a normal squirrel again. We found out that the other squirrel he had in the house with him was a female, and when he found out he quickly got her pregnant. He stayed around and constantly visited with me until May. As the weather started warming, whenever I was on the porch he would come down, find a sunny spot and just lie out with me for long stretches of time as I sat reading. I would talk to him, and sometimes he would come over to be petted and at others, he would just lie there and ignore me. He seemed to just hang around for the companionship. I never knew if he thought he was keeping me company or if I was his company.

Summer arrived, and we simply didn't see him anymore.

Other squirrels moved in and out of the squirrel house during the following seasons. It had been eleven months since I last saw Lurch, and one day I looked out and saw a familiar face looking out the squirrel house doorway. I thought, no way, not possible, and then he came out. He sat for a moment, started to scratch, fell over the side and grabbed on to the edge and pulled himself up. Lurch had moved back into the house! This time, he was very skittish, and nervous, but after about four days we reacquainted ourselves and returned to back porch feedings complete with petting and ear scratching.

During this stay he reconnected with the squirrel he previously lived in the house with, they mated again, and she produced another fine litter.

Lurch certainly brought a lot of pleasure to Linda and me (yes, worry too). He also helped remind me of the squirrel named Peanuts I lived with for a year and a half when I was eleven and twelve years old. He would curl up at my neck and sleep in bed with me every night.

The picture I use in my profile is of Lurch. That picture was made two years after he had his accident and we first met him. If you click on it, you will see a larger image. Look at the joy and glee in his face, listen, and you will almost hear him laughing.