A Short Play

Themes

The want to be taken seriously. Individuality versus teamwork. Do ghosts really exist? In Matlock?

Situation:

The Spooky Knights are ghost hunters. They have been engaged by a strange Vicar to investigate possible spiritual disturbances in a recently closed village church just outside their hometown of Matlock, Derbyshire.

As the group sets up, tensions among them begin to surface. But these must be put aside when they hear unsettling sounds, the lights begin to flash and the church itself vibrates. One of the Knights also disappears.

Can the team find their missing colleague and scientifically explain what is causing the disturbances…

“Damn!” I hear the expletive above Schumann on my headphones. Something is bouncing along my commuter train carriage floor. Shuffling Ugg boots enter my eye line. I look up from my Kindle.

“Where’s that…?” The woman sitting opposite, mid-30s, shoulder length blonde hair cupping a pretty but pale, peaky face is scouring the floor. She sees me peering at her and giggles.

“I’ve lost…”

Moth to a Flame? Or a Spider’s Web?

I take an interest for two reasons. One, her giggle and smile are charming. Though pretty, until now I never considered her attractive, as every morning she stands on the platform wearing a sour this girl…

When we visit picturesque countryside, a great woodland, mountains and valleys, or a spectacular coastline, we know how easy it is to break out our cameras and simply take the grand, all-encompassing shot. After all, having made the effort to visit a fantastic viewpoint, it feels like a waste not to capture everything we can see.

But by including the whole scene in one shot, aren’t we potentially missing out? Could it be that the deeper beauty of the place and its valuable stories are being overlooked? Lost in the broadness of our sweeping image?

Seek the Essence

The two…

I committed the cardinal sin a couple of days ago. I know better; but proceeded anyway.

All the best landscape photographers say that before you start shooting, do your research. Use the internet and mobile apps to check weather conditions, visibility, cloud patterns and the sun’s path across the sky from dawn to dusk. Where possible, scout the area beforehand. Get to know the best spots, times of day and so on ready for when you arrive. Most importantly, when there, be patient and wait for the optimum light.

But no!

I was heading for the lovely Kent village of…

“Hello” bellows Shouty Woman (SW) into her mobile with an upward inflection. After a short pause, “I’m on the train”; this even louder. Another pause, then, “Yeah, can’t talk; carriage full o’ people. I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

SW is now listening intently on her phone but interjects randomly, and still unnecessarily loudly, with “Can’t be!”, short laughter burst then, “She wouldn’t!”, inward gasp of breath, “Huh” and then “Nooo!”. And so it continues.

I see the faces and body language of fellow passengers betraying their thoughts. Some adjectives visually audible include ignorant, thoughtless, arrogant, ill-mannered, ill-bred, boorish….

Finally…

Here are a few pictures of my first photography project book. No, this isn’t a shameless plug before anyone complains. While the book is available for sale¹, as you can see from the title, the potential market is very limited.

“Then why are you showing them to us?” you might ask.

Well, I wanted to share why I decided to start creating long form visual narratives and publishing them in book form. It may be a way for you to think about curating and showing your photographs.

Key Drivers

For me it’s about three things:

1. the relationship between photographs…

“Hello.”

“Hello.” She must see I’m wearing headphones. I already feel twitchy choosing this train seat next to her.

“Chilly this morning!”

Headphones? On?

“Yes.”

Silence for a moment, from her, not the ‘Today’ programme coming through my over-ears. I delve into my back-pack for my Kindle¹.

“Kindle a?” Both of her open-prayer-like hands move towards it. Hum, bit strange. I tighten my finger grip on it.

“Yes.”

“How do you find it? …

Take a look at the following two pictures. One is a peaceful, early morning woodland scene from Kings Wood, Challock, Kent. The other is a quiet, late afternoon, tide-out seascape from Camber Sands, East Sussex.

Do you think they would have greater value as landscape images if they didn’t have people in them? Or do you think their respective values are increased with people included?