Inspiration

Writing Prompts from Photography: If walls could talk

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I’m getting to slow to walk about as much as I was, so my street photography opportunities are limited at the moment, but I have been finding other things to take photographs of. I’m aware I’m not posting consistently now, I’m just too tired. Hopefully I’ll get some of my creative energy back in the weeks after they arrive.

We’ve recently been doing a bit of decorating in our house. I’ve hit the point in my pregnancy where ‘heavy’ is the only appropriate descriptor for me, so I’ve not actually been doing the work, but various relatives have been arriving at the house to strip wall paper and entertain my toddler. I am greatful for all of that help.

Recently we removed layers of wall paper in our hallway of a colour scheme too hideous to take photographs of, and underneath it we found this. It’s the ghostly imprint of a previous generation of wallpaper on the plaster, although none of the actual wallpaper remained under the current woodchip.

I live in the UK and have been involved in decorating a number of old houses in my time. Often peeling back layers of wallpaper reveals yet older layers beneath, and it is sometimes sad to have to strip back the history of a place to be able to paint and clean things up.

I often wonder about the people who choose the ancient styles of wallpaper, who they were and what there lives may have been like. They put me in mind of the kind of ghost stories that are set in old, secluded country houses.

The pattern here is floral, and given the way it left an imprint on the plaster it must have been strongly textured. I imagine it was good quality paper, maybe bought by people who hoped to give a good impression to their neighbours.

Who do you think choose the wall paper?

What happened to them?

If these walls could talk, what stories would they tell us?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: The Hideaway

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I’ve had this photograph sitting on my computer for more than six months. It’s of a den my partner and I found in the woods while we were out with my son in the summer. At the time I found it enchanting, as I always do when I find these secret places that so strongly remind me of childhood. 

I don’t normally like to put photos of my son out on social media, mostly because I feel he’s too young to understand what it means and so too young to ask permission from. But you can’t see his features in this photo, and he has changed a lot since then anyway. It’s helpful to have a little figure in the picture to get the scale of the thing.

Later in the summer a wild fire swept through the entire area where we saw this little den. We’ve not been back since it happened so I do not know if it survived the blaze. 

I’m writing this as we prepare for Christmas, another time that is intimately bound up with the excitements and disappointments of childhood. The picture reminds me that some of the most alluring mysteries of childhood, some of the things that may make the best fuel for a good story, are fleeting, and rapidly lost to time and events beyond our control.

Who do you think built this hideaway?

How did they build it and why?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Baby Doll

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I frequently see lost things belonging to children when I’m out and about. It’s probably because my life mostly revolves around activities for toddlers and home working that I end up in places where lost shoes and lost toys accumulate.

I always think there is something a little forlorn about a tiny lost trainer on the pavement, but at the same time I see these objects so frequently that I seldom stop to photograph them these days. 

I actually saw this doll on one of the few days I’ve had recently that didn’t revolve around entertaining a toddler. I was walking from the train station to the physical office where I used to be based all the time, but now only visist about twice a month on a hybrid working arrangement. 

This doll was laying face down on the floor near a block of flats, I imagine forgotten after a hard day of playing. I stopped for this photograph because for me there is something a little sinister about the way it is positioned, and how the doll is face down in the dirt.

When I went to look closely at the photograph I found that face to the doll is out of focus, despite my best intentions to get the eyes, and that only adds to the sinister appeal. 

It reminds me of the set up of a lot of those serial crime shows that were popular in the early 2000’s like CSI and Criminal Minds. Maybe the loss of the doll is the beginning of a thriller type story.

How did the doll come to lay there like that?

Who did it belond to?

Where are they now?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Through the Mirror Crack’d

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

When I saw this mirror on the floor among some wet autmun leaves recently I was really drawn to it. I was on my way to work, it was raining and I was in a rush so the photograph is a little blurry, even after I’ve tried a couple of filters on it. 

But I don’t think it matters. The image itself still has an attractive power for me. When I looked at it I kept thinking of the phrase ‘Through the mirror crack’d’ but I wasn’t sure where it came from. 

A quick search on wikipedia reveals that it is the name of a British film from the 1980’s, based on an Agatha Christie novel, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (this is an affiliate link — if you buy this book through amazon I’ll recieve a few pense as a referral fee — but I’m not suggesting you should, I’ve not read it!).

I don’t know the story but Agatha Christie has a well earned reputaion as the queen of cosy mystery novels, so it made me think a little about the mystery involved in this picture. The mirror is shattered almost from the centre, giving it the appearance of rays of sunshine.

How do you think it came to be broken in this way?

Who broke it?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Ribs

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

We’ve had some really stormy rainy weather recently, and I’ve seen quite a few umbrellas lost to the elements, discarded on the street here and there. The autumn weather in the UK is always a bit unpredicatble, but it does feel like the winds are getting a little stronger, the storms a little more frequent and severe.

I picked this one to take a photograph of as I was really drawn to the way that the canopy had been almost completely stripped away from the internal mechanism. 

The different struts and wires remind me of the rib cage of a strange animal, like the abandoned umbrellas are some kind of odd sacrifice to the weather gods.

Stormy weather is often used in various forms of creative work to change to mood, to indiscate things are about to get bumpy, or that something sinister is about to happen. 

Who do you think may have discarded this umbrella?

Where were they trying to get to when the weather turned so furiously on them?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: The Stack

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I saw these chairs the other morning when I was walking home from dropping my son at his preschool. It was one of those gorgeous bright but crisp autumn mornings and when I initially saw the chairs I thought they were new because of the way the light fell on them.

It was only when I got up close that I noticed signs of age. The chairs are dirty, and some of them looked in need of repair. Someone probably dumped them in the night hoping that someone else would take care of them, and they are gone now.

When I saw these chairs they gave me a sense of an ending, like at one time they had been used in a school, or a dining room that was once regularly filled with cheerful guests, but is no longer needed. I don’t know why that feeling struck me, but it did. It’s funny how these thoughts come to you sometimes.

In my psychology studies I have come across the idea that the human brain is arranged so that thoughts and ideas connect through an enormous web of associations, and that the way one thought leads to the next is not linear or predictable, but peculiar to the individual.

My partner, who works in IT, tells me that this is why it is so difficult for computer programmers working on AI to find creativity difficult to crack. It is not a linear or predictable process, but one that is unique to the individual. Personally, I take comfort in that.

I may write a longer science-based article on this if people are interested. (please let me know in the comments)

So, how do you think these chairs arrived on this bit of pavement?

What has come to an end?

Could it also signal a new beginning?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing prompts from street photography:What’s the combination?

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I’m sorry not to have posted for a few weeks, I’ve not been well. Hopefully I’ll get back on track in the next few weeks.

I saw this the other morning while I was rushing home from the local shop in the rain. Someone had left a black plastic bag of rubbish on the pavement. A fox had visited in the night searching for tasty morsals, and had torn open the bag, leaving the rubbish spread liberally across the street.

In the middle of all that rubbish I saw this key pad, glistening in the rain. I probably looked a bit odd, crouching over a load of someone elses rubbish to take a photograph, but the obejct itself grasped my curiosity (I have a short article on the science of curiosity for writers here for those who are interested).

It looked to me in that moment like the kind of keypad that may be attached to a safe or a panic room, and I began to wonder how it ended up on a rainy pavement in a slighlty run down suburb in outer London.

I don’t actually know how common it is to have a safe or a panic room in the UK, but it feels like to me like only the really wealthy would have such things, and we do not live in an area where the really wealthy live.

But I could be wrong. You never really know what the ordinary looking front doors of your neighbours houses may conceal behind them. It’s entirely possible that some of the modest semis in my area conceal all sort of hidden wealth or criminal undertakings.

What do you think the combination to this keypad unlocked?

Why do you think it was torn away and discarded like this?

Could it have been an emergency, or a robbery gone wrong?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Creative Prompt: Strange Signs in the Woods

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I saw this in our local nature park while walking back from the shops with my son. A few years before and oak tree had fallen across the path and for a while we had the experience of walking under an archway made of the body of the oak tree, until the parts that crossed the path were taken down by the local council.

The stump here is what is left of the oak tree, but until recently I had not seen it adorned like this. I do not know what this means, if it is simply decorative, or is it a symbol or the result of a ritual performed by someone whos spirituality is closely connected to nature.

In Celtic belief systems feathers are thoughts to have a connection to air, ascention, lightness, purification or purity, and fertility. Priests were believed to wear cloaks of feathers to assist them in their journey to the other world.

Of course I do not know what the symbolism here is, or if these are just the efforts of bored teenagers. I did feel that there was something a little strange about it as I walked past, as if it were meant to represent something, or even warn of something.

Who do you think made this strange pattern?

What do you think they were trying to say?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Creative Prompt: A Missing Finger

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I saw this glove this morning on the pavement as I walked my son to the nursery. It had rained over night and most of the pavement was dark and damp. 

The contrast of the bright pink against the grey concrete caught my eye and I stopped to take a photo. As I was standing there with my phone, I noticed that the glove was missing a finger, which I found intriguing. 

How did the owner of the glove lose a finger? 

Was it just the glove, or the flesh beneath?

Did they lose a finger to a dog, or even a wolf?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Creative Prompts: The Moon

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I took this photo at one of the local playgrounds that I like to take my son to. Not very far away from where these rocks are is a slide, numerous swings and other playground bits and pieces.

The playground itself is located in a wildlife park, and there are lots of small trees and bushes to wander through and explore if the swings are not your thing. My little boy likes to run through them, often faster than I am able to keep up with and emerge in different bits of the playground.

These rocks are on the edge of one the open areas, and are large enough to sit on. They are also smooth to the touch, probably because many small people have scrambled over them through time.

I was sitting on the largest of these rocks quite recently, watching my son rush about in the sunshine when he turned and ran towards me. When he stopped just in front of me he pointed at the rock I was sitting on and said ‘Mummy sitting on the moon.’

The freedom with which my toddler thinks and associate ideas together to produce sometimes magical statements often catches me by suprise, and often gives me ideas for things I may have not arrived at on my own. 

When was the last time you sat on the moon?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see I also have a Patreon Page.

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