Out Of Focus

Fumbling with the

back of what would become Mum's

camera-case, you expose the

film to the

light, accidentally, your first awkward

brush with the 'Art Of Photography' we are told- wiping

out images that she 

captured, until you set them

free, unintentionally...and spent 

the next few decades trying to

get them back again.

 

Once you got going, and we'd successfully come out, a technician

then teacher, you let us in to

the dark room (of your soul)

boys with toys: a plastic dinosaur, a

colt 45 cap gun; a matchbox car.

We laid them out like offerings,

a sacrifice to your 

growing God, 

on the precious paper,

wth the light off and the light on,

into the developer, the fix, the wash of the wave

that brought the spectral echo of their prayer back to

us, saved; stored on this black and white shore

in an age before the digital hoard.

 

I remember that mug, one of your grateful students

bought you at the 'End Of Term'.

Photographers Never Die They Just Go Out Of Focus...

A joke that scared, still scares us.

 

Once you woke us up in the night, just

because the light was right,

and sat us on a chair by the window

bleary eyed, in Addison Road,

the streetlights in the background

over exposed, if that's the right word,

who knows? You know.

 

Albums of holiday snaps winding on, black and white shots at Birling Gap

after Bill Brandt, the layers of sedimentary rock

as a backdrop. 

 

I remember when we were older, Tom's negatives hung up, getting stuck

in the doorway in a freeze frame, but

the only one of us to come away with

any understanding of depth of field, apertures and shutter speeds.

 

We didn't understand quite what it all meant, until now...

Shadow and light.

 

You put off treatment, until after your entries had been

accepted, printed framed and delivered.

We shivered with worry, but that night

in the gallery, a private view,

with my new born daughter,

I'm staring across at you, as they

hush to make the announcement - and

pronouncing your name, the applause, in

complete focus, the moment is yours

What you'd overexposed and lost was

recaptured, and outside 

the sun went down and there

wasn't a frown.

 

Ascending to the gallery, your first prize, a

first prize, a silhouette of the daughter

who came after, through the canvas 

of a hired wedding marquee,

the dark shadows of branches splayed out

around her profile,

framed by faded bunting.

 

Hope shines through a pin hole

and with your winnings, through a new lens,

you zoom in and move on, and out of focus

comes love...