Swan*
To all urban hunters who carry a gun
Beware of shooting at the setting of the sun
Beware of shooting at the setting of the sun
A man went hunting and he shot in the dark
But by mistake his true love was his mark
Because she was dressed in white, he took her for a swan
It was she, his true love he shot cold at dawn
He ran to her and he found it was she
His limbs were weak and his eyes could not see
He embraced her in his arms as he found her dead
But by mistake his true love was his mark
Because she was dressed in white, he took her for a swan
It was she, his true love he shot cold at dawn
He ran to her and he found it was she
His limbs were weak and his eyes could not see
He embraced her in his arms as he found her dead
Swan
I’d sworn not to buy a digital camera ever again but failed to hold that promise, I did it again. I fell in love with the results from this little camera, in the sense that the files were directly usable as they are, and striking close to an analog image. A long held personal wish that apparently needed to wait for two decades to come true.
And so I went out, to test and try, this camera for a few days and after making some prints on genuine black and white glossy paper, I saw an opportunity to make a book from these prints.
I could make a “real” photo book so to speak, by working directly with the physical prints instead of a digital file and traditional ink printing methods.
Between my test shots I found a swan, some shots in the dark and frozen ground. I could use all these as a metaphor for my concerns about gun violence in general and rising in the Netherlands in particular. I remembered an old traditional Irish song which I used (with the freedom taken for changes) for the storyline.
Thus that’s how “Swan” came to be. A solid hand-build result, and I could produce just one book per day (in this edition of six books), the assembling was pretty tedious.
*Based on the sentiments and plot of a traditional Irish folk song; Polly Vaughn
