Update: On hiatus

After nineteen lovely sessions with fascinating characters I've come to the point where I have to decide on what to hand in to the College. I love all my writers equally of course, but after a long discussion with the relevant tutor we settled on the ten which would be most suitable. Since the shoots and subjects were so varied this comes down to chance more than being any reflection on the models. I'm very grateful to everyone who has given their time to this.

The final images are:




You can see the whole bunch in all their glory here.

This means that for the next wee while I'll not be dashing around meeting writers. Which is not to say that I feel the project is over - how could it be!? I suspect I'll be keeping this going for a long time yet, but a few weeks to focus on other work is necessary.

Christina Stephen: Writer (and cameraphobe)

Christina (blog) is another of the Napier bunch. She is currently working on a non-fiction project. her most noteworthy trait in my brief experience of her is the lack of photographs from the past decade and a bit. Despite being, according to all of her classmates, quite lovely to look at she has become unable to look at pictures of herself. So when she said she was willing to be a part of this project we were all stunned!

However, as part of her acquiescence I promised not to release the image until she okays it and although she says she doesn't hate it (which is a coup in itself) she hasn't yet dis-embargoed it. I had said at the time that even if it never reaches the public eye I would deem it a success if she felt slightly less panicky at the sight of a camera than before, and I stand by this.



Christina works in a show home so I went to meet her there and posed her in the glorious penthouse. Well, on the third attempt we did; the first time I somehow forgot and the second time she had managed to double-book! Third time lucky...

Sadly it was raining outside so I couldn't take advantage of the lovely view so after playing with mirrors and speaking in calming tones for a while we ended up with a HELLO-style shot in the master bedroom.

Alison Summers: Writer, mostly of short stories

When I started this project I knew I wanted to get Alison on board. She's fabulously enthusiastic and looks more like Patsy Stone every time I see her. When not modelling tiaras she's studying towards a PhD at Newcastle University.



I originally wanted to get Alison in a wine cellar but couldn't find a good one. She suggested the Museum but the roof was closed, which was a little bit disappointing. In the end we meandered the Museum and then Greyfriars graveyard, where i suddenly saw a tree stump and cried out, "be a tree!" - which she did!

JL Williams: Poet, director, producer...

Jennifer (website), amongst other things, is Literary Officer at the Traverse Theatre and was recently poet of the month at the Scottish Poetry Library.



Having recently suffered at the lens of a photographer who wanted to make people look gritty, she was a little bit skittish to begin with but after a wee walk along the river seemed to be more settled. Battling the bright bright sunlight, I had to layer up two polarising filters in order to get a nice depth of field.