35mm · Film photography · Photography

Rural transport and the making of memories

Yep, it’s a bus stop. It’s quite a nice stone-built one though, and it’s in a beautiful location.

This is one of those photos that I like without it being of a traditionally photogenic subject. A bus stop is mundane, but this one looks like some sort of miniature bothy sat on a wide grass verge beside a country road.

I like the way the telephone wires lead out of the scene to destinations unknown.

I like the white laundry blowing on the washing line as it reminds me of the freshness in the air on the day I made the photograph.

I sometimes wonder how much a photograph engages it’s creator because it triggers memories? For other people, the stories need to be created. For me it brings the day I visited this place back to the front of my mind, and reminds me of the other things that happened on the day: How I was cross that it was cloudy on the morning I left the house, despite the weather forecast promising otherwise; how my mood lightened as the sun began to break through the cloud cover; remembering a long-ago school trip to one of the villages I passed; thinking my little car might struggle to carry my weight up a very steep hill; how myself and another walker struggled to follow the footpath (and he climbed a dry-stone wall and nearly did himself an injury on some barbed wire; how a man videoing Magpie Mine asked me if I would let him record my thoughts (I did); waiting ten minutes for clouds to move across the sky and balance out one of my compositions…

Maybe not a thousand words, but it’s not the half of what this picture says to me either.

Country bus stop

Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Ilford Delta 400.

Taken on 16 March 2020

4 thoughts on “Rural transport and the making of memories

  1. I’ve been trying to share a little less of the stories behind my pictures, let them do more of the talking for their own merits (what if any exist on a case by case basis) so visitors to my journal can regard them on their own terms. I’m finding it’s a hard habit for me to break but I think I’ll get there over time, or at least more of a balance. Nonetheless, nothing is sweeter to me than such a lovely, personal recollection of memories (and making) such as right here. And contextually there’s still plenty of filtering, a lot to wonder about………

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    1. I think sometimes photographs are stories in themselves. The subject matter tells its own tale – maybe different for each viewer, but stories nonetheless. Other times, the photo serves as an illustration to the story – sort of “here’s what happened and, look! Here’s the proof!”

      The other day, before I wrote the post about my bus stop photo I was looking at someone else’s pictures on Facebook and they weren’t really moving me. The subject matter wasn’t engaging me, and they didn’t really tell me much of a tale. But then I thought about the person who made the photos. I bet to them, each of those images brings forth a whole flood of stories around their taking. Sometimes a picture that others won’t give a second glance to is the one that holds the most meaning to its author.

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