Naked in Ten Photos: Red in the Forest
writing about the first photo/chapter
Image description: a tiny red riding hood in a green forest. A giant bird, some yellow letters and a couple of bottles.
The inspiration for this photograph is Francesca Woodman’s photo “1980: "Untitled," Macdowell Colony, Petersborough, N.H.” I take a look at this photo regularly. Woodman’s work is described as haunting. I had a book from the Ottawa Public Library years ago but it is no longer there. I have a need to read about this young photographer who died by suicide at the age of twenty-two. It is a rabbit hole I will likely have to go down. There is also a film called The Woodmans about her childhood and family.
I have a problem. I love research so much that I can research endlessly and not get to the actual writing. Is this happening already? There are so many things I wish to uncover, to learn about and to use as inspiration for this novel.
I am also thinking of the scene of this photograph. I want it to be taken in autumn, late autumn with the scents of dying trees, old leaves, smoke, and fire in the air. In the late afternoon just before the dark comes on.
Serendipitously, in the e-mail newsletter of the Ottawa Romance Writers Association, there was a link to a list of sensory words. The overriding sense is in my mind for this photograph is smell. From the list of smell words, I get damp, earthy. It’s a starting point, but what I need to remember or search on is what a forest smells like in late autumn. There are many responses from Google, including crowd sourced info through Quora and Reddit, but to begin this search of forest scent, I start with articles in the Washington Post, skimming through its sciency content. I also google “the scent of birch.” It smells like mint apparently. That scent doesn’t’ go with the tone of the scene for me. But a site that sells candles has this to offer: “Birchwood itself has a unique, pleasant, and somewhat sweet scent that carries hints of wintergreen and mint, with a subtle smokiness.” Wintergreen is more of what I am looking for. And the smokiness.
More photos of Woodman’s birch series.
I’ve given Rachel a red cape to wear in this photo, even though the photo will be black and white. Little Red Riding Hood was a favourite fairy tale of mine. The main reason was thinking about how beautiful the red hood would be, in my mind, the only colour in a black and white forest where a wolf hides in the shadows. It is a story that has sexual overtones for me too. Beauty and the Beast, age and experience, seduction and also unfortunately the old predator and the young person. If you Google “Little Red Riding Hood and erotic,” you get a huge list of erotic retellings. What is Rachel’s connection to this story of LRRH? What is Linden’s, the photographer?
Other things I need to research: film cameras that photographers loved/love. Right now I have two cameras in the first chapter: a Pentax and a Polaroid Land camera.
I’m writing in third person limited/close and I may alternate between Rachel and Linden with the next chapter being a new photo from Linden’s point of view.
At this point, I am getting impatient. I want to write. I attempt a draft. The next post will be my first attempt to write part of the opening chapter of Naked in Ten Photos. It will be a post for paid subscribers only.
Thank you to all who’ve subscribed as free or paid subscribers. I appreciate your support. If you don’t want to subscribe but like what I do and want to support my creative efforts, please buy me a coffee.