| Brighton 2022 |
It was a Saturday morning up where the public land intersects with the golf course. He was sitting smoking a cigarette with a small sandy mongrel by his feet. I was dawdling not wanting to cross the fairway leading to the 18th hole, a little nervous about getting hit in the head with a stray golfball. He said you can cross there - I said I've heard stories of trouble between walkers and golfers. He just shrugged and said there is always a little sandpaper in these situations.
His use of the word sandpaper made me smile and we struck up a conversation as only two strangers can about people, the landscape and of course the pandemic. He asked what I was doing to which I replied on my way to take yet another picture of the same dead tree I had been photographing for the past year. He asked if I knew of the Japanese painter that did all the views of mount Fuji - Hokusai yes. He pointed to the Amex stadium that sits in one of the undulations of the hills of the South Downs Way. People hate it but I think it's great and I often think about doing that Hokusai thing with it. I agreed it would be a fine thing to do and added that I often find myself revisiting certain places as they seem worth more than one picture and that they reveal more to me each time.
I asked if I could take his portrait - Normally I say no but as we've been chatting why not. I quickly took a picture and wrote down his email saying I'll send you a scan when I've processed the film.
A week later I emailed the picture and he replied - only the third photo of me I've liked since I was 11 years old and I would like a print.
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| Ilford Multigrade FB warmtone |
For print sales and enquiries please contact me via email.
andrewhillard@gmail.com
Two streets away
Relentlessly retreating
Hissing your name onto the pebbles
She struggles with the cycle
Her salty faded veil dimmed at the edges
long shadows folded downward
no time for sudden guesses
no time only time to try
blood and memory
a river coursing our lives
flowing on through the years
past people and places
a sliver of moon in an ink black song
its liquid breath keeps moving on
it spills through the thin trees
a thin trickle of blood
in the fading winter sunset