tate modern

Writing in Galleries

In September 2011 I went along to the Royal Academy of Arts as part of a ‘Stories at an Exhibition’ writing group led by Shaun Levin. I spent a couple of hours wandering around an exhibition of street photography by André Kertész, and writing to images that inspired me. The first exercise invited me to stop at ten random photographs and write the story that I saw in the image—one minute of writing per photograph. Looking back over my notebook, I’m surprised at the immediacy and energy in the few scribbled lines per image—each one could blossom into so much more.

Writing and Photography

Exhibitions of street photography can offer a rich variety of inspiration for writers. A visit to the Tate Modern and the William Klein/Daido Moriyama exhibition on 1st December certainly provided me unexpected insights into one of my characters.

Klein has a distinctive approach to street photography, using a wide-angled lens to cram as much as he can into each shot. He wants to create the sense that the viewer is jammed in amongst the crowds. It was the faces that jumped out at me, one or maybe two in a crowd, often looking lost. Loneliness spotlighted. Writing in the cafe, it was this sense of being lost that emerged in the internal voice of a character who is, on the outside at least, a strong and confident man.