Have you ever used a pin hole camera? This was me and a friend at our neighbours house. The pinhole camera was a biscuit tin, sealed with sellotape and with a sheet of black and white photographic paper in the base. The lid had a tiny hole created by hammering a small nail through it. I used a piece of card, I think, to cover the hole. In this case I stayed still for about a minute, but my friend moved after about thirty seconds if I remember correctly. The image was created by lifting the flap over the hole, then covering the hole up again after the exposure.

I don’t remember developing it. I’m sure I did, it was part of the coursework at college to do some photography. I did a few more. One of an old man, standing in front of this window, and one of me sitting on a setee inside the house by this window. In it I had turned my head right for thirty seconds and then left. The result was my body was visible, but my head was missing, just a stump where it should be.

That was forty years ago, a long time ago. The dim and distant past.