Sinister: Trying to avoid confusion wherever humanly possible

[Will Salt]

Stop reading now.  Yes, I do mean you.

I had an idea the other day for a Grand Project.  I want to write my 
autobiography in pictures, because it would be much better than words.  
Not pictures of myself, but pictures I have taken or made, and pieces 
of letters that I have written to people.  I came up with this theory 
that if you put together all the things someone has made like that, you 
get a much better impression of them in your mind than if they try and 
tell you themselves.  Seeing through the eye behind the camera, if you 
like.  Then, you can combine this with bits of writings they have made 
when they weren't looking to make an impression.  Emails they put 
together in haste, little jottings to friends.  Things you don't think 
about writing too much.  It would help avoid confusion.

THINGS IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO CONFUSE, NUMBER 332:
Aureoles and Oreos.

I first had this autobiography idea when watching a lovely documentary 
about Surrealism on the TV.  And I thought: a visual autobiography 
which contains no pictures at all of its subject.  It's not really a 
*surreal* idea, to be honest.  A surreal autobiography would just have 
pictures of random-seeming things.  Letting the subconscious through 
and all that.  Pictures of: an oil refinary, a lemon, a packet of 
biscuits and the corrugated surface of a field, all in sequence.  All 
connected to me, and in some kind of logical order; but unless you 
*are* me you don't know what those connections are.

Unless you know that I like eating biscuits.

THINGS IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO CONFUSE, NUMBER 479:
Lobsters and knee-high boots.

Of course, to make it worth writing an autobiography -- even one 
without me in it -- I'd have to do something interesting so people 
would actually know who I was.  Unless the pictures were *really* good, 
which would be unlikely.  I could write someone else's autobiography, I 
suppose.

I was still thinking about My Pictorial Life when I went to a rather 
nice photography exhibition that is on at the moment.  It briefly 
covers the entire history of photography, which is quite annoying 
because it reminds me that I am unlikely to ever be good enough to 
create anything like that.  Maybe I would have been a hundred and fifty 
years ago, but not today when there are so many photographers lying 
about the place.  I have to try and remind myself that each one of 
these pictures represents a pinnacle; one wonderful image from a 
lifetime's work.  And good photographers become good photographers by 
taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures and throwing ninety per cent 
of them away.

Whenever I feel an attack of surrealism coming on, I reread bits of 
Alice In Wonderland.  It's a lovely book, and I think it's one of the 
first surreal books in the same way that the Odyssey is the first ever 
novel.  My parents gave me a lovely hardback annotated edition last 
Christmas, and I love to light lots of candles and snuggle up in bed 
with it.

THINGS IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO CONFUSE, NUMBER 927:
Cabbages and kings.

There was a photograph by Lewis Carroll in the exhibition.  An ugly 
young girl, about seven or eight, wearing a nightdress and stood by a 
bed.  Tne card underneath the picture said "Revd. Charles Lutwidge 
Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)".  A foreign man with a bushy moustache came up 
to me, and said "I know Lewis Carroll took photographs.  Does this say 
'Lewis Carroll'?"  I think he was confused by the brackets.

I need something to inspire me to photograph.  Otherwise, I just think 
of the city and can't think of any new images I want to capture; then, 
when I *do* see something I don't have my camera and can't record it.  
Or, I daren't, because it involves shooting a stranger.  I only dare 
take pictures of people I don't know when they are a long long way away 
and probably won't notice.

THINGS IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO CONFUSE, NUMBER 15283:
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and a rice pudding.

A random thought I had earlier whilst watching the telly:  Does that 
bloke from Travis model his hair on Richard Gillanders?  I think we 
should be told.

Right, that's it.  I'm going to shut up now.


xx
gneissy



-- 
ICQ 66321009
http://www.btinternet.com/~wpsalt/
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