I wrote a piece of text for the degree show publication based on a photograph taken on my first day of school - 1st September 2002. I studied the photograph for some time and tried to remember how I felt then in that moment the photo was taken, trying to capture it through text. I interlocked my study of the photograph, what went on in the image with my own feelings and experiences at the time. This created an interesting read of two perspectives.
Edited by Nathan Jones
Typeset by Mark Simmonds
Printed and bound in Liverpool
.................
I hold this
photograph in my hand. It is a memory. I feel if I blink I am going to be an
old lady. But then, as though the photograph is leaking, I feel the pleasure my
parents felt in me that day. My first day of school. The 1st September 2002. We
are six and seven years old. I am led to stand in line with the other new
children, by an older pupil. We are waiting for our turn. Standing in line is
something that grown-ups do, and it is as though we have gotten older just by
this simple action. Guided to experience our first bell. The first step to
growing up.
I am
moving closer, step by step
I am
becoming older
I am wearing
a white blouse that is too big, and I can’t walk because the bow on my skirt
catches my knees. The ruffles in my blouse, even then I knew they were over the
top. The boys are wearing white shirts and neckties, they feel silly, too old,
like men at a wedding. I imagine them now, fifteen years older in the same
clothes. The same look of worry and boredom, the same long stem carnations in
their hands. Funeral flowers! Later we will hand the flowers to our teacher. I
pass the five boys in front line. Four of them are holding flowers upside down,
their mums have told them that if you hold flowers upside down the sap is kept
in the blooms, not the stems. Is this a tradition? I think it is. Has the blood
left my face?
The
sound pierces me, it holds me
It shakes my core
What catches
my eye in this image is my long silver hairclip on my thick brown hair. It
reminds me of the morning of the ceremony, when my mum proudly pushed my hair
back and clipped it, patted my head. I was her only child then. I think my dad
is behind the camera.
A
moment, a snap
It’s
the sound of time
It surrounds me, it is with
me, It is in me
Right in the
middle of the photograph there is a woman with fluffy brown hair, she is also
the only person looking into the camera. Is she smiling? Is she staring? Her
hair makes her look like a clown. Above sun is shining onto the windows of the
school. You can just about make out
people standing at the window of the first floor. Two women, one in light blue
top and one in white and a woman in black top with folded arms. All standing
and observing what is happening outside. They are part of the ceremony and part
of the experience, looking down.
Harsh
and kind
I
blink
It’s
gone
My eyes are
captured by an older woman in the right corner of the photographs, dressed in
white linen with gold buttons down the center. She is looking behind her,
helping to guide the first years into their line. My first ever teacher -
Ludmila Gurjevna. She was never happy. Ludmila Gurjevna are you grumpy now? Ludmila
Gurjevna did you like me? I was so so quiet. I used to draw trees and flowers
didn’t I. I hated the feeling of chalk on my fingers. You would call me out,
and I knew the answer to the equation, but I couldn’t write it down.
It
begins
