Francisco Cano Canito recibiendo el hiomenaje de Sanfermin.com y Kukuxumusu por sus 100 años

We will miss you, Canito

Canito is going to be missed. Indeed, he had already stopped coming to his annual date with Sanfermin due to his health problems. But up to a couple of years ago he never failed to keep his yearly rendezvous with the fiestas all down the decades. We have a special place in our hearts for him because, in 2010, Sanfermin.com dedicated its special Sanfermin tee shirt to him with lots of photographers of the Running of the Bulls and with an image as spectacular as it is hair-raising, taken at a Running of the Bulls from the 1950s. Two years later, Kukuxumusu paid homage to this same photographer when Francisco Cano celebrated his hundredth birthday. Since then, there were two occasions when we had to refute news of his death. Unfortunately, this third time it is really true. And we shall certainly miss him a lot. The realization that we will never again see his characteristic white cap protruding over the wooden fence in the bull ring will take some time to assume. And indeed, nor his favorite camera, which had an N painted over so that it read “Cano” instead of Canon.

There is little we can add about the character of Francisco Cano that is not already known or has not been already narrated. However, it is true that his work with the Running of the Bulls has never been given the importance it deserves. The National Taurino Award was presented to him some years ago for his photographic work in the bull ring, but his work on the Running of the Bulls was also vital in that, thanks to his fame, many media agencies printed his work in international media channels, which brought the Pamplona Bullrunning to the attention of an international audience. That homage which we paid to him in 2010 by way of creating a T-shirt with photographers of the Sanfermin.com bullrunnings wished to highlight that important role that he had played down the years.

Camiseta de Kukuxumusu en homenaje a Cano como fotógrafo del encierro.
Camiseta de Kukuxumusu en homenaje a Cano como fotógrafo del encierro.

In 2012, when we awarded him a Kukuxumusu drawing with a watch that symbolized the fact that the hours and minutes did not seem to pass for him, Canito told us that he never tired of these particular fiestas that he knew so well. If we must choose one particular photo perhaps it should be one that is not taken by him, but rather one taken of him and Charlton Heston taken together at Sanfermin in 1062. Heston was shooting the movie El Cid and he wished to pay a short visit to the Pamplona fiestas and Canito wished to meet him. What would he have said to him on that day?

Now perhaps they can meet once again wherever they are and remember that far-off occasion together. RIP.

¿Quién ese ese que está con Canito?
¿Quién ese ese que está con Canito?