Plan of action

Today, as most other days, I have sat and thought about my experiences of the last year. I have pondered again about how I might record them. With the first copy of Tamsin Pickeral’s book in hand, which I have trudged the globe for many months to track the horses which were needed to illustrate it, I think that it’s time to stop thinking about it and to action plan. How many times do you write something on your list of things ‘to do’ before you actually do it? Is it the things you don’t write down that actually get done first? Mmm. The ones on the list are far more likely to be procrastinated over and then later transferred to another list. Either that task is going to take too long, or it requires some assistance, or something you don’t have right there (like your computer, or credit card, or the telephone number of the person you need to call). Either way,it is left for another day.

What I want to  do, so very much, is to write stories. To write the behind-the-scenes-making-of-the-book that has now been printed. Whilst I was travelling there just wasn’t time, or resources, to complete a daily journal, to write the bits that counted, to record it in any other way than with the photographs I was taking. But, that’s enough! Each image in the book has a story behind it. A story so different to the last and the next, and a story that I believe is worthy of telling. I did write a few blogs along the way, and just studying them I can see how vast the gaps are in between. And now, as I go back through the images and try to edit more, post more images, build hype about the book, send pictures to people, I realise that I need to just start to write this all down now. The order, it might seem, is irrelevant, but what my ‘plan of action’ is, is to actually stop procrastinating and start logging.

SO, day by day, I’m going to post, post about the book, about the pictures. I will write about each image individually, and post more pictures in between. I promise I will do this now, because despite all these experiences being so vivid in my mind, I am acutely aware how rapidly memories fade. Names of horses, names of owners, the whens, hows and wherefores.

The book is in chapters and I see no better way of logging this data than in the same order, page, by page, by page. I will start tomorrow, but leave you with this image – this is the mud-spattered back of the guy who, trying to impress me and win my heart, decided he would wade across the water to the horses and encourage them toward me. Did he win my heart, or didn’t he?