When I saw Stuart O’Sullivan’s personal work a few weeks ago, I felt physically winded with wishing I was in the warmth of South Africa. My husband’s maternal grandmother had just died there, and I was really feeling the distance. The second picture in his series could have been taken in her house, in the room where my husband’s uncle smoked while we visited. Only I was too busy being all North American about cigarette smoke around my baby to appreciate it. It’s only been two years since then, but the uncle has died, the house was sold, and now Granny has died too, not quite 92.

My next thought was to wonder if my husband might know O’Sullivan, since they were both born in Johannesburg around the same time. (No, he doesn’t.)

And my third thought was that I have pictures just like that. So I went through all my South African photos to find them, and, um… Well, I don’t really have any. Certainly, I have photos that share the same subject matter: flowers in front of walls with razor wire or other sharp things to keep people out, burglar bars from the inside, men in blue suits working, people swimming in pools by well-manicured gardens, the amazing brightness of indoor rooms… but they kind of suck, to put it bluntly. I guess that’s why he’s published a book and had exhibitions and I haven’t.

On the plus side, looking back at those pictures made me see that I have actually improved since then. And that’s encouraging.

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Last week, my copy of The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings arrived, which I mentioned a while back. I love it. If you have any interest in documentary portraiture at all, get it. It was only $17 Cdn on Amazon, which seems incredible for a photo book (although I will say that the reproduction of the images just wasn’t as good as more expensive photo books). Albert’s handwriting tell as much of a story through the book as his captions and the photos themselves.

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I also discovered yesterday that Phil Toledano’s father died recently, at the age of 99. I found Days with my Father back in January I think, and I think it’s wonderful. My deepest sympathies to the family.

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I’ll leave you with one more picture of Granny Joyce.