Photography for me is an entry. An entry into creativity. In many ways it is an easy one. It is hard to avoid what we see and to reproduce it could not be easier – just point and shoot, as they say.
The dream, the objective for me is to write. But I am ill-disciplined. Flickr has helped me to cope with that inconsistency. I post two photographs most days to my two flickr accounts. It is an exercise for me. Often, I am staring at the image when I have uploaded it to Flickr, emptying myself in an effort to see how the photograph can fill me; can trigger something to allow an interpretation in words come. Sometimes, it is as easy as opening a window to let air in, other times the window’s glass is replaced with brick. It may come in the form of a title, a poem, a dialogue or a story. When it comes, it flows.
Around the time of the birth of my son, my sleeping patterns got messed up and it was like I had forgotten how to fall asleep, insomnia Jumped in bed with me, and like any excited new bed partner, it just wanted me to stay up all night. One of the many things I tried to do around that time (still in fact) is to write. Some of my photographs around that period are dark. I found the words, when they came, were initially vague and veiled, but revealing.
The image I have chosen for today is one of a reflection of a line of trees in the roof of my car. When I opened my front door in the mornings and step on to the elevated doorstep the car’s roof was below me. It was silver-coloured. There were dark, scraggly lines of trees’ branches, seemingly etched into the silver. Deprived of sleep has its advantages. It hazes the mind. I stood staring at this. Then I realised I had to photograph it. I got the 55mm – 200mm lens, zoomed in, focussed out and below is the result.
Later, I uploaded it to Flickr and hazy-headed I sat and wrote:
The sheet slips from the bed. He turns and kisses me. Light streams in through the slit of the curtains to rest on the wall behind us. His voice is quiet, whispering to me. Our breath slows and rises with our sighs. I feel it warm on my neck. Lingering. The back of his hand runs down my cheek and pushes aside the hair from my face. He smiles.
He is here with me; here with me now. My eyes close and open, close and open.
Awake. I know he is not here. My eyes shut. I exhale. I will the dream to return. The images appear in fragments, fleeing me.
