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Sunday 6 November 2011

An impassionate string of passionate adjectives


It was cold. Very cold. Freezing. Bone-chilling. Or hot. Scaldingly so. Perhaps. It depends on the scene. Sometimes it is wet; never merely damp. A downpour will do. Or a torrent. Yes a torrent. And an severe one at that. Many inches in an hour. The most since records began.


It was more than I ever imagined, yet the image was in my mind from the start. It was desolate. Isolated. Barren and overwhelming. But serene, obviously. Quiet enough to make me pause, despite my deep personal suffering and the irresistible photographic potential, to feel at one with nature. Small. But passionate to articulate big things. An ardent conservationist irrespective of, but reinforced by, feelings experienced in the moment.

A cliché.

Some say the strongest photographs need not be accompanied by words. I disagree, words channel emotion and can make messages more pungent, but why do we always chose the same few? An impassionate string of the most passionate adjectives? Or an overly-dramatic behind-the-scenes expose of a walk in the park?

The Metro displays more inspiring vistas than my grandest photographs and the BBC NHU makes my most-arduous exploits look like walks in the park. Few lives are altered by the press of a shutter, so why pretend otherwise? If we are desensitised to sensationalism why not try something else?

I am far from the first to do this, and it is not the only other option, but with a little research I have found something much more penetrating than drama: facts that make you think.