Valentine's Day is long gone now, but the project continues... over the few years since I started the collection I avoided showing my work in February so that it didn't get associated solely with the festival of Love, Desire & Lonely Disappointment, but this year the opportunity to gain publicity for the project was just too good to miss, so I went ahead. I'm glad to say that the feedback has been fantastic, and is ongoing, so I don't think I'll be forgotten about till Feb 14th next year - I just need to keep up the momentum!
I'm starting work on a publicity drive to publishers now - writing stuff, putting together publicity packs, etc. Obviously, dear reader, I'll let you know if it works out well...
The picture above is from Bournemouth beach., and always attracts attention when it's shown. I used to walk the seafront here almost daily, and the benches were often taken up with elderly couples, sitting together, reading newspapers, dozing, staring out to sea. They'd lived a life of long love, maybe something that will become rarer in the future. I used to think about how lucky they were to still be able to share that bench together after so many years together. At least that's the story I'd assumed - they may have been having erotically charged elicit affairs, and were simply exhausted after a night of... I'll stop there. I try to avoid having people in my pictures, and happily on this cold late afternoon the light was perfect to capture this empty bench, and the colour was just singing, longing to be preserved.
