I am finding myself more and more keen to write with my imagery (hence this blog/website!). Personally, I feel words add greatly to imagery by providing context and narrative to the photographers intent and how the imagery might be interpreted by viewers. I understand that ‘an image is worth a thousand words’ and that an image ‘should be able to tell its own story’, but I disagree to an extent. We are all different, all have different intentions. Combine this with the often quoted observation that ‘my friend and I stood in the same place and took a picture of the same thing and produced completely different images!’ How can the viewer be clear on the different intent and mindsets when the interpretation of two different people seeing the same things is ‘completely different’?

To this end, I believe that adding narrative to imagery is an additive exercise, that is, that it adds something extra rather than repeating or taking away.

I have recently happened upon the ‘Substack’ app. I think it was following Michela Griffith that led me here and I have since looked to follow others. Michela has evolved to writing with her photography and is very eloquent with that. In a recent post she spoke of ‘solo ballerinas’ replacing ‘the ensemble of falling leaves’. What a beautiful phraseology inferring artistry in the dance and performance of autumn. I have found the writing of others equally enthralling and would encourage you to look at the posts there.

Recently I participated in ‘The Word’ workshop with Ian Hill and Rob Knight. This workshop focusses on developing the written word around photography. In writing for this workshop it was clear that writing for photography could be inspired by images, simply illustrated by them or could be an imageless essay around the subject. This really helped me justify to myself (if I needed it), my direction to write with my images. I will be trying to post some of the materials here that I developed on the workshop. It has certainly given me an impetus to finish off some pieces and get back to populating this website after so long.

It may be then that the content on this website evolves somewhat to be more text-centric, even story telling. The concept of ‘flash fiction’ certainly struck a chord with me and I quite enjoyed the practice of letting your imagination run with the inspiration of the photograph. I have also been trying a bit of haiku, expanding to small pieces. Increasing the practice of journalling will hopefully benefit me here and lead to a greater number of smaller pieces which may then contribute to larger articles. We shall see.