The day started so very well. I spent the morning with David Manley, a colleague from my course. We spent a great few hours setting up his printer and then playing around with cameras. We also found time to put the world right. As usual we felt better but no doubt it had little or effect on the way the world worked - no butterfly effect here!
After dark I decided to work on some more photographs for my project. There are two floral memorials for deaths around the village that I have found very compelling images to capture. I spent more than two hours working on the photographs and felt I had captured something interesting and well in keeping with the No Title/No Rules theme.
I then started to work on the files in my study and then read one of the notes left on the road sign of the scene of one of the fatal car crashes. This had a deep effect on me as I read it. I cannot see all the text but I will repeat some of what I could see here:
It's been a long year without you
The pain still lingers
Our heart ache for the person
As the pain gets harder
You light up our days with a smile
In my heart the pain is raw
No one can ever take you away.
Now I don't know who wrote those words, if they're lyrics to a song; a poem or what but they have had a profound effect on me. It makes you question what you are doing and why. This is someone's deep felt heartache that you are examining and I suppose to a degree manipulating. It is also a tug at the heart to any parent - the raw pain on show can almost be tasted.
So will I continue the work? I think the answer is yes - but now with greater humility. This commemorates the death of a real person. This is not some abstract that you can debate. I don't have the stomach to be unaffected anymore - my Weegee protection has gone and the sadness and hurt is felt all too easily. A sad end to the day.
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