Missed Connections, Shot from the Hip
Or, Huis Clos in Ayrshire
Had a bit of a nightmare a few weeks ago.
The day started with me getting the 6:31 train to Stranraer via Ayr.
Alas, our train was delayed by two minutes, which meant that our connecting train left just as we arrived. Four of us were stranded in Ayr.
Ordinarily, I would have given up at this point and got the next train home. However, one resourceful traveller called the station’s help point and managed to secure us a free taxi to Stranraer.
The principal characters were:
Craig (early 20s, sharp suit): heading to an interview at Morrisons supermarket.
Mark (late 40s, mysterious): leafletting for a cause he wouldn’t name.
Lily (late 20s, middle-class English woman): representing a London-based eco charity that provides grants for home insulation.
And me? I was there to finally run Stranraer’s parkrun.
It felt like the beginning of a play, maybe Huis Clos. Were we a set of strangers fated to spend eternity together?
There was also Robert, our taxi driver, who told us he was just about to retire to a village outside of Bangkok. He’d had enough of Scottish weather.
“Ye ken?”
I kenned.
The five of us chatted about insulation and the damp problems that had been in the news. We then talked about where we were from. And, lacking much else to discuss, Craig asked if anyone had seen anything good on TV.
Sadly, with the abundance of channels and streaming services, we couldn’t find one single programme that we had all watched. Where, oh where, can we find the universal in such an individualistic age?
Lily needed to be dropped off in Barrhill, which added a delay. But I thought I could still make the parkrun in time.
Disaster struck seven minutes from Stranraer. Craig looked pale and said, “I feel sick.”
The taxi driver opened the window and, almost instantly, Craig poked his head out and vomited. Sick all over the back window and a bit on Mark’s face.
Robert shouted, “Why didn’t you tell us you felt sick?!”
“I’m so sorry!” He replied. “It never happened before. I thought I could hold on.”
Robert stopped the car, retrieved the cleaning equipment from the boot, and told Craig to get to work. Mark, meanwhile, was examining himself for flecks of vomit.
Personally, I was just hoping I’d make it to the parkrun in time. It was a long way to go to miss it. And, after the car was clean and Robert dropped us off in Stranraer, I did make it. A mere ten minutes late.
From the hip
The story above contains photos “shot from the hip”. That is, they are all photos taken without looking through a viewfinder.
I also use a wallet case with my iPhone and can take photos without the screen being visible. Furthermore, there is even a button on the iPhone that opens the camera app and takes a photo without having to look at the screen at all.
My goal is to make the camera an extension of myself; I want to know the technology so intimately that I can envision and execute the shot without needing to fuss over the device.
Most of the time, these photos are terrible, but the method can help you to document situations where clearly bringing out the camera would change the mood.
It adds another layer to the debate over photography ethics. At least with a visible camera, the person can object. Shooting from the hip, especially with a hidden camera, can feel creepy. I justify it to myself by claiming that I am documenting reality as it is, but who am I to override the will of others?
When called out on “shooting from the hip”, a journalist friend suggested that I could try to gain consent retrospectively. I squirmed, realising the extent to which I would have to question both my ethics and aesthetics.1
As photography becomes a popular hobby, as cameras get ever smaller— to the point of being embedded in glasses—the question of consent and legality will get ever more pressing. Are you ready for the conversation?
In my reading group this week, we discussed Katherine Angel’s Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, which is about the ambiguities around consent and desire. Post #MeToo, it feels like enthusiastic consent is the only consent that matters, but Angel—an academic turned psychoanalyst—knows that articulating desire is never simple.
Beautiful little story. Felt like it could almost be an edition of Number Nine, if fleshed out a bit. Or does it just need a final shot of Morrison's fish counter after an unfortunate incident with the new manager in post!
Okay, the weather in Scotland is horrible but the scenery! Stranraer on an overcast day looks both incredibly depressing and awesome at the same time.
After you mentioned 'Huis Clos' I looked it up. So that is where, 'Hell is other people' comes from! I knew it was Sartre but I ddn't know the play.
As someone who has always suffered from travel sickness I felt for Craig. But I felt even more sorry for Mark and Robert!
Re your reading club, sex used to be a taboo topic, not something discussed in the open, and I think it was better like that. People nowadays assume that not wishing to talk about it is a hangover from Victorian prudery but I don't think it is. I think not talking about sex, just as you wouldn't tell you neighbour about your latest bowel movement, is probably the best approach. Intimacy gets lost once you start talking about sex as you would about how best to clean your roof. And there's something distasteful about the hordes of women writers, possibly sex maniacs lacking a proper hobby, who insist on thrashing out in the minutest detail something best left unanalysed. A certain kind of legalistic mind, once it has lost the ability to judge a situation and character with skill, has only legal agreements about consent to fall back on.