Jonquil (September)

[1854] The French have a word for it, the way the light touches the clear spaces on the glass pane where jonquils line the path. It eludes definition. They are distinguishable as they merge with the sunlight. The figure nearby is a woman. She lacks definition, having swayed slightly during the shoot, just as jonquils sway if there is a breeze. Her daywear has doubled, her face is shining, her thoughts are so distant from us we cannot even guess. They elude description. [1908] Endless springtime, like endless summer, comes to an end. It all ends up brown, in a sepia picture. The flowers, arranged as backdrop for the shot by human Water Rat or human Toad of Toad Hall, were taken from the water pastures that very morning. Their pungency fills the room where the colossal camera was assembled. The common shape of their petals puts us at rest, as though to think it has been like this since the time of the ancients. Is that music? We translate the season into something resembling eternity. [1959] The French invented photographs and guillotines. Little square kodaks capture the moment when the shutter came down and for a split second everything was More Light! [1984] Polaroids go from glamour to lurid, with enough gazing. The stars line up in their amazing look as though this were all perfectly natural. Their glow is extra-glow, their pose is what goes. But appearance is overexposed, it seems, the colours richer than anything we see in real life. We feel let down. Maybe they’re only there because they are photogenic. Beauty is skindeep. Gloss is boss. They are narcissuses, every last one. We were impressed, thrilled by our own fantasy. We start longing for the real thing. [2013] Loaded for the slideshow after a day out, they click past. Each angle is a few microdots in the attached download from anywhere it might spring.