The Photographer Calls

I was woken at the ungodly hour of 11.30 this morning by the insistent ringing of the telephone.

It was a man whose name appears to be The Photographer From The Chronicle. At least that was what he called himself throughout all of our conversations.

Apparently, when there's no news and The Photographer From The Chronicle is twiddling his thumbs, the accepted solution is to go down to the Big Gallery and take some shots of the pictures in there.

Anyway, that was what The Photographer From The Chronicle did today. And as he'd taken some shots of my pictures, he thought it would be good to get some extra shots of me to go with the shots of the pictures. Maybe it'll make a feature.

When he arrived, he said "Hello, I'm The Photographer From The Chronicle."

So it was that I found myself in the studio with my nose shoved up against The Madonna of the Toboggan, my palette (which I never pick up) clutched near my left ear, a dry paintbrush in my right hand.

"Do you always hold the brush like that? Looks kind of funny"

"Unlike the palette by my left ear?" I asked.

"Ah, that's to keep the striplight out of shot," he explained.

We finished off the session with me down on my knees with my head pressed up against some of the figures in The Great North Run, staring into the void like El Greco's St Peter.

I'm sure it'll look great when it's in print. And, of course, any publicity is good publicity.