City Life

Unravel the confusion

I had to be in the office today, as is usually the case on the August Bank Holiday, because it was a working day for our main foreign client. I gave everyone else the chance to take the day off. And, for the record, that was before I saw the weather forecast. I know I'm really not on my game at the moment because despite it being an important blip day I still managed to forget to take my camera with me this morning. I've not done that in a very long while. I felt quite naked.

By the time I got home the rain had well and truly set in and there was nobody about in Ilkley. Of all the days to come so unstuck. Not quite in a panic I decided to jump on a train into Leeds to give myself the best possible chance of an interesting portrait. It was a little bit of a race against time with the light fading fast on a miserably grey and wet evening, but I needn't have worried. Within minutes I'd met a couple of lovely people and actually then had a decision to make. I chose Akiem for his fabulous smile, which seemed perfect to mark the halfway point in my project, although Janina's more bashful smile was quite lovely too.

When I started quietly and anonymously posting my thousand faces there was never any intention to blip every day. I thought a couple a week would be good going. I honestly expected it to take a good ten years to complete this project The last 498 have mow been been consecutive blips. The problem is rarely in finding a face but more in choosing which one. The diversity of people I come across is astonishing. I think each and every face, all of them so very different, has been beautiful in its own unique way. And almost every single person I've approached has been warm and engaging. When I get the occasional refusal it is invariably polite and with apology. People are typically lovely and very generous. It's been a revelation.

I never expect any comments on my other journal for what is there really to say about a stranger's face. Yet you do find clever and interesting things to say and for that I am really grateful. It's means a lot to me that this project seems to give so much pleasure. It truly does make it worthwhile. Thank you all so much.