Word No. 13: Reveals
Contextual sentence:
What is evident in both films, though, is that the ‘soul’ reveals itself through the meditation of either photography or cinema.
Source: Ciné-Files: French Film Guides—Alphaville
Author: Chris Darke
Page 47, line 13.
Published by: I B Tauris. 1990.
Word selected: 27 May 2017
Photographed: 30 November 2017
Completed: 30 November 2017
Photo: One fairly obvious option in response to the word ‘reveals’ might be to relate the work to sex, seduction or lasciviousness—given that, even at my age, there still a corner of the mind or part of the brain that concerns itself with such things. However, certain superstitious proclamations in well known publications suggest that such thoughts, deeds or actions might lead to dire consequences as revealed in the final chapters. While
certain thoughts, deeds or actions might be ‘wrong’, anti-social, corrupt or unacceptable, the procreative instinct is a persuasive influence and LOVE, or deep feelings for fellow persons, is—in my humble and somewhat muddled view—an essential part of one’s being or existence. Just a thought; not very clear—lacking the clarity, perhaps, of the threats revealed in ‘the book’.
Word No. 14 Pants
Contextual sentence:
Pants are all-compassionate. Pants are saints. This means that my underwear is named after an early Christian martyr.
Source: The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
Author: Mark Forsyth
Page 11, line 7.
Published by: Icon Books Ltd (digital edition). 2011.
Word selected: 12 June 2017
Photographed: 6 September 2017
Completed: 7 September 2017
Photo: The legend goes thus: Emperor Maximianus, on discovering that his personal physician was a Christian, condemned him to death. They tried numerous ways of killing him but nothing seemed to work. The doctor forgave the person who tried to decapitate him and this earned him the name ‘Pantalon’—the meaning of which is ‘All-Compassionate’.
In the tenth-century, St Pantalon became the patron saint of Venice and the Venetians were often referred to as the ‘Pantaloni’. Long breeches, as worn by the Venations, were known as pantaloons. The word was shortened to ‘pants’ and the English called some underwear ‘underpants’. Hence, the sentence quoted above.
Word No. 15: Polluted
Contextual sentence:
“Polluted water’s killing more Haitian children than hunger,” said Father Privert.
Source: Murder in the Latin Quarter
Author: Cara Black
Page 116, line 12.
Published by: Soho Press, Inc.. 2009.
Word selected: 18 June 2017
Photographed: 4 January 2018
Completed: 4 January 2018
Photo: “Everything’s gonna be made out of plastic.” In Talking Columbia, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott spoke it. Woody Guthrie wrote it (and almost spoke it) and I have, for so long, thought that Bob Dylan spoke it—but apparently he didn’t. Now, one of the most serious
threats to ocean wildlife is plastic pollution. A petroleum based product, for too long, the economic solution to mass storage and transportation of liquids, chemicals, foodstuffs and almost anything else you can think of.
Word No. 16: Be
Contextual sentence:
Do not, Venerable Sirs! Be satisfied with this Triple world, which is like a house on fire, with those ignoble, low and contemptible sight-objects, sounds, smells, tastes and contacts!…
Source: Buddhist Scriptures
Selected and translated: Edward Conze
Page 208, line 31
Published by: Penquin Classics. 1959.
Word selected: 20 June 2017
Photographed: 18 October 2017
Completed: 18 October 2017
Photo: To quote the late feminist artist Kate Walker: “Home made, I’m afraid.”
Word No. 17: Citroen
Contextual sentence:
By contrast, “The Alchemist”, with Paul Citroen as the protagonist, is an allegorically-staged pictorial invention that was taken elsewhere and outside of the examination work (illustration, see p. 48).
Source:
Marianne Breslauer—Photographs
Edited by: Katherin Beer and Christina Feilchenfeldt
Page 26, line 11.
Published by: Parvenu. 2010.
Word selected: 29 June 2017
Photographed: Mid 1960s
Completed: 10 January 2018
Photo: I found, in Exchange and Mart, a somewhat beaten-up old Citroën 2CV in the mid 1960s. I bought it one evening in London for £60.00 and drove it down to Detling with minimal headlights and a
roof which would not stay in the closed position. I had some work done to it and did some myself but it failed the MOT and I eventually sold it for £30.00. C'est la vie.
Word No. 18: Architect
Contextual sentence:
The Société du Passage Jouffrey, which numbered among its members an architect bearing that name, was at the origin of its creation.
Source: The Covered passages of Paris
Translator: Ann Sautier-Greening
Page 48, column 1, line 3.
Published by: Monom,
Éditions du patrimoine.
2003.
Word selected: 11 July 2017
Photographed: 20 August 2010
Completed: 18 July 2017
Photo: Einsteinturm—the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany was conceived around 1917, constructed between 1919 and 1921 and became operational in 1924. It is an astrophysical observatory and was built to validate (or disprove) Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Its architect was Eric Mendelsohn.
Source: Wikipedia
Word No. 19: Nature
Contextual sentence:
A more general application, to describe the NATURE (q.v.) of something, supported a further application to persons which was fully developed, though with many intermediate uses, by eC18.
Taken from the section: PERSONALITY
Source: Keywords
Author: Raymond Williams
Page 234, line 19.
Published by: Fontana. 1976.
Word selected: 17 July 2017
Photographed: 21 September 2017
Completed: 22 September 2017
Photo: Some small, yellow flowers (Oxalis corniculata or Yellow Sorrel), flourishing in the north of Brunswick Square in Brighton. (One thinks of Detroit.)
Word No. 20: Switched
Contextual sentence:
I immediately switched to my wife’s bed because the view from here is so much more attractive.
Source: Charlotte Salomon
Translated by: Leila Vennewitz
Page 793, line 2.
Published by: Royal Academy of Arts 1998
Word selected: 18 July 2017
Photographed: 9 February 2018
Completed: 30 April 2018
Photo: I have had this motor for years and I thought I'd wire it up to the mains with an illuminated switch in the circuit that would indicate that the electricity was switched on. However, I could not get the original switch to show a light so I eventually switched switches with ultimate success. The old, discarded switch is to be seen behind the motor. The motor's spindle is indeed rotating but the indicating switch suggests this also. Of course, I need not have bothered really; if the switch was not illuminated the indication might be that it was switched off.
Word No. 21: Negatives
Contextual sentence:
The negatives for the slides are made on DuPont Microscopy, developed in a soft-working glycin developer.
Source: Leica Manual
Edited by: Willard D Morgan and Henry M Lester
Page 356, line13.
Published by: Morgan & Lester, Publishers. 1947
Word selected: 27 July 2017
Photographed: 6 December 2016
Completed: 6 December 2016
Photo: Randomly selected sleeves of negative strips—colour and black and white—held up before my studio window and reversed. (Negative negatives—I’m sure).
Word No. 22: In
Contextual sentence:
In haste the cook went to the garden with his curved knife and cut off the tops of green vegetables, chopped them together,and made soup, unaware that in his haste he had included a part of a snake in the vegetables.
Source: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Compiled by: Paul Reps
Page 67, line 11.
Published by: Pelican Books. 1971.
Word selected: 30 July 2017
Photographed: 4 October 2017
Completed: 5 October 2017
Photo: From an off-cut of timber, a sliver of wood, and some Liquitex paint, I assembled a diminutive and ambiguous construction—a cross between a monument and a stage set.
This sat on a shelf for some time.
Taking one of the boxes in which I photographed (and housed) some of my vinyl records (Self-portrait in Vinyl), I painted the interior in order to place my little construction inside to make the photograph for the word In.
Thus we have: The Figurine on a Plinth and ‘In’ a Situation.
Word No. 23: Grond
Contextual sentence:
In volle lengte tuimelde de Duitser op de grond: een thans legaal geworden kogel had hem geraakt.
Translation:
The German fell headlong on the ground: what had now become a legal bullet had hit him.
Source: De Dam 7 Mei 1945
Edited by: Flip Bool, Veronica Hekking
Page 13, line 12.
Published by: Primavera Pers, Leiden Uitgeverij Focus, Amsterdam. 1992.
Word selected: 2 August 2017
Photographed: 2 September 2017
Completed: 3 October 2017
Photo: The surface of the ground atop the cliffs adjacent to Hastings Castle called Hastings Lookout or Hastings View Point.
Word No. 24: Outside
Contextual sentence:
At night you could swipe milk bottles left on the pavement outside dairies.
Source: Love on the Left Bank
Edited by: Ed Van Der Elsken
Page 44, line 6.
Published by: Dewi Lewis. 1999.
Word selected: 2 August 2017
Photographed: 25 August 2008
Completed: 16 November 2017
Photo: Late afternoon at Domain Reneville, Chemin de Reneville, Fecamp, France. 2008.
Word No. 25 Remnants
Contextual sentence:
But almost every holiday maker has most likely to come across some warning message from the past: a partisan grave in a forest glade, moss-grown remnants of wartime fortifications, a rusty, bullet-torn helmet or a memorial cross on an execution site.
Source: This is Poland
Edited by: Katarzyna Machowska
Page 5, line 25.
Published by: Interpress Publishers,
Warsaw. 1972.
Word selected: 2 October 2017
Photographed: 16 November 2017
Completed: 17 November 2017
Photo: My old cornet which I think I bought in a second hand shop on either Broad Street or the Hagley Road in Birmingham back in the early 1970s for just a few pounds. Sadly, the joins have become unsoldered so it is in need of some attention.
The Books
When considering which book to choose to make a random selection of a word for this series of photographs, I would go to whichever set of bookshelves that I was near at the time and select one that ‘caught my eye’. I am able to explain little more than that. Whether it was influenced by my physical, emotional or psychological condition at the time—I cannot say. I refer to the approach as ‘fairly random’ which I think, is sufficiently precise. A few were ‘books to hand’ i.e. books that I was reading at the time e.g. Murder in the Latin Quarter, and The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (being browsed on my iPad whilst on holiday). The iPad can be seen between Alphaville and Murder in the Latin Quarter opposite.
