searchingtoseeFor later
Posted on March 24, 2013
I wonder if she will remember this moment. The feeling of his vast hands cocooning hers. All the impetuous haste of youth, she had.
I can do it!
He tried to slow her down. To show her. With the wisdom of the knowing tortoise. (She didn’t listen, of course.)
I have saved it for her, anyhow. For later.
For when she is ready to remember. When she needs to understand who she was, and who she might be.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Coherence
Posted on March 10, 2013
The sky drops right down to the sea, and shears a perfect horizon at the edge of the world where the air meets salt water. The sea exhales, lilting undulant murmurs which curl and crease up to a wrinkle and then smooth again in turn. Rise and fall. As regular and certain as the breath, as the expanding and contracting of the lungs.
The sun flickers and wanes. A light bulb going out. It skips and glints across the frothy tips.
It’s always there, and always to be found. Once it has found you, and you have absorbed its salted sweet essence it will seep into a chamber of your heart and never leave. You will always be able to find it there, when you need it.
And you will always come back for more.
*****
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
In the gallery
Posted on March 4, 2013
I took a trip to the Photographer’s gallery with Alex. It was the first time I had been there since the gallery found its new home on Ramillies Street. It’s a great spot; very quiet, understated, yet just yards from the frenzied consumerism of Oxford Circus. A “behind the scenes” glimpse, if you like. I used to visit the gallery often when it was in Great Newport Street. It was a bit of a sanctuary for me when I was studying. I always enjoyed the cafe, and the bookshop, and I’m pleased to say that these are still there, and much improved. I could spend hours, literally, browsing in that bookshop, but Alex had to drag me away eventually! Five floors dedicated to photography was also a real treat.
There is an excellent exhibition: Perspectives on collage currently on. Collage is something I have been thinking about a lot recently, so it was very inspiring, and gave me much to think about.
I would thoroughly recommend a visit. It really is a fantastic space (and of course I took some pictures).
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Nature’s sweet promise
Posted on March 2, 2013
It’s still so cold and bleak out.
As I walked my feet trod a dubious path of churned up mud and wasted bracken. I nodded at occasional dog walkers. Grim smiles. It was a cold day, and I kept my gloves on until I needed to take a shot. The wind whipped up around me on the open fields, and stung through the gaps in my loosely woven woolen hat. Inadequate, I now realised. I pulled it tighter under my chin and sought out bushes and hedgerows for shelter. I had my tripod, but decided to chance it, and when I squeezed the shutter I held my breath and stilled myself against the wind.
The lens picked out ghostly apparitions of dead seed heads dangling dejectedly. Their spidery limbs turned upwards, as if beseeching. They seemed to be whispering their final confession to winter’s close. When I visited them in Autumn they yet guarded a thousand jewel-like secrets; tight, alert and intent, but now they hung open carelessly, tired and resigned. Their secret treasures spent, abandoned.
After a while the wind stilled a little, and the sun showed up and played a little game of hide and seek, dancing capriciously behind the clouds.
Eventually I found what I was looking for amongst the amongst the razed, endlessly barren fields, the naked trees, the menacing thorns and the brittle, tangled weeds: Embryonic signs of almost-life
It was sweet, deliciously candy coloured, and perfectly poised. The tiniest burgeoning sprouts and shoots. Budding. Nudging into newness. Promising life, warmth and light.
I ran home like a child with a smile on my face. My cheeks rosy pink; my heart humming in time with the carefree twittering of the birds.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
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