Writing Prompts from Street Photograhy: A Fridge on the Street

Mar 12, 2022Feb 8, 2023 / The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

I saw this fridge the other morning on a street near where I live. It was pretty gloomy when I took the photograph and I didn’t think that the light was that great so it was a bit of a hurried snap. We get a lot of fridges and things like that dumped in our area by fly tippers, and I don’t normally both to take photos because a big white box isn’t normally that interesting to me. This one was a bit different, because of the magnetic jigsaw puzzel that is still attached to the front door. The fridge was a new arrival that morning – it hadn’t been there the evening before.

The way that one of the puzzels looks almost complete, while the second one is a fractured smattering of pieces spread across the surface makes it looks as if up until very recently, this fridge was being used by a family. There is something about the dumping of this fridge that speaks to me of dislocation, or of a rapid change in circumstances.

What happened to result in someone needing to get rid of it in the middle of the night?

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: A Mystery Box

Mar 4, 2022 / The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I’ve been listening to The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr on Audible recently (affiliate links – if you use these links to make a purchase I’ll get a tiny commission). I’m not very far in and wouldn’t want to say at this point whether I reccomend it or not, but I’m finding it interesting. My attention was caught in particular by a section about curiosity and storytelling, and I am planning a longer post on that for later this month. Towards the end of this section he wrote about how the film maker JJ Abrams has described his “controling theory of storytelling’ as the opening a series of mystery boxes. This thought in particular was in my mind when I stumbled across this week’s creative prompt.

I saw this little package sitting on a wall in the sunlight a few mornings ago. Inside the bag you could see a collection of cans of Fosters Larger. I didn’t touch the bag, so I don’t know if they were full or empty, but the way the bag is tied neatly, with the ‘thank you’ massage emblazoned on the side gave me the impression that someone had left a thank you gift for someone else. The little package was left on a side street next to a play ground, not on someone’s doorstep or front fence, so it peaked my curiosity a little.

Who would leave such a thing? Who was it for?

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. 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 here.

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Street Photography: New collection out this week

Mar 1, 2022 / The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

Over that last year and a bit I’ve been running a regular creative prompt blog post once a week where possible. During that time I’ve been taking photos of odd things and objects that I see out and about. It didn’t occur to me until recently that this is probably a form of street photography. I’ve certainly not really been calling it that until quite recently. This is probably because I haven’t really considered myself to be a photographer before, although I’m beginning to learn a lot more about photgraphy now as a creative practice through these regular posts.

I recently too a look back through some of the photographs for a round up of the last year’s prompts, and was kind of struck by how much I liked a small subsection of those photographs. I feel like a handful of them have a kind of gritty commersial appeal, and wanted to make more use of them than to leave them languish here on the blog.

I’ve not really done a photography collection on Redbubble before, but I felt like this may be a nice place to start, so I have curated a small selection of them and uploaded them onto Redbubble to see what the response may be. There are six at the moment. My aim is to get 15-20 into the collection. I have a few more in mind already from my existing portfolio, and will be keeping my eye out for more interesting finds.

So here it is – The Lost and Found Collection. As I said, it’s bit of an experiment for me, so any comments, feedback or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. If you are interested in the process of creativity and want to get a copy of my free short book of creative prompts, 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 here.

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Creative Prompt: Wherever you lay your hat…

Feb 25, 2022Feb 24, 2022 / The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

The property market in London is crazy, right?

I’d like to claim that I know what I’m looking for when it comes to street photography, but I don’t really. Sometimes just looking around as you walk about will gift you a funny photograph like this one. I took it the other morning while taking my son to nursery, and happened to stumble on this little ensamble, where someone had dumped a child’s toy house next a bin and a SOLD sign. When I walked back the other way the bin and the house had been moved and the joke was lost.

I really like this photo. For me it tells a saterical version of the London housing market story, where increasingly small patches of land are selling for increasingly large piles of cash. The streets around this spot are showing increasingly strong signs of gentrification, and there are a number of developers building small blocks of modern but characterless flats nearby.

What might the new neighbours will be like?

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Writing prompts from street photography: Broken Strings

Sep 10, 2021Nov 11, 2022 / The Magpie at Midnight / 3 Comments

I walked past this broken tennis racket a number of times, and each time I thought ‘that’s not what I’m looking for’. But I began to feel more and more intrigued as I noticed the racket had moved each time I saw it. The first time I saw it, it was in a dark corner under an overhanging building where I would not have been able to get a good shot. But slowly it seemed it inch more and more out onto the pavement, as if creeping into the light, maybe wanting to be seen.

When I finally decided to stop and take a photo, it had manged to move several hundred meters down the street, and was almost in the middle of the pavement, right in my path. I felt as is it was asking me to take the photo, so I did stop and get out my phone.

The way the strings curve and wind against each other, and the way the frame, although broken, still sits in almost it’s original form is both beautiful and sad to me, as if the shape of it tries to suggest better days that are now past.

Once I had taken my photo, I did not see the racket again, as if satisfied, it melted away. Of course it is just a broken old object laying on the pavement, and someone has probably thrown it in the bin. But there was something about this episode that spoke to me, as if the racket wanted to be seen, and to be documented, to say ‘I existed’. I think there is something in this sentiment that we as humans can relate to.