An Interlude: Words
Sunset
King's Lynn, Norfolk
I found an index card recently (which I wrote several years ago) where I’d made notes for book club, on ‘A Month in the Country’ by JL Carr. And maybe I was affected by the limited space available on the card, or because I felt out of my depth in the book club (an engineer amongst the erudite literati) but my handwriting was cramped, uncomfortable and confident. But looking through the notes I’ve made for this project my handwriting is different – it’s free-flowing, exuberant, excited, occasionally illegible (though that might be due to spelling hiccoughs). And the words themselves are tumbling out – by the time I've completed this journal on ‘What has photography ever done for me?’ I’ll have written 10 different section-pages and 28 sub-sections (the longest so far with 1500 words, the shortest 250).
It seems that the creativity and expression which my photography has effected in a visual language is equalled in the written one. I’m making the most of the opportunity in this online journal and in student essays (most recently arguing against the enduring belief – certainly not held by me!! – of women’s inferiority in art, for an Oxford University course on The Impressionists). And I enjoy browsing through a thesaurus (preferring a printed version) to find the words which feel rich and ‘right’, replacing the ones which first come to mind.
And that’s what photography does for me – gives me permission to be expressive in whatever medium I choose, gives me the freedom – and helps me believe I’m allowed.