The Duck Pond

Boris Vian’s ‘The Froth of the Daydream’ must have left an impression, far beyond the Pils-paved streets of Freiburg (see last blog). Because recently, whilst in Wales (a country known for its blubber – Dawn French, Dylan Thomas, Tom Jones, Welsh Cakes), I once more found myself focusing on foam. 'Foam Cut To Size', but I could hardly believe my eyes, as one foam led to another, and in no time at all I found myself staring into a duck pond.

I only got one shot at the duck before the wind picked up, leaving it dead in the water.  

White Foot Forward

Freiburg, Germany, I’m reading Boris Vian’s ‘The Froth on the Daydream’. It’s not a book about beer, but it gives me an idea. The streets of Teutonic Freiburg are paved with Pils, and aren't ‘street photography’s’ random, urban wanderings - filling the camera with intoxicating imagery – no more than a search for form, out of the foam of the everyday?

It takes just under two minutes to pour a 1-litre stein of beer, and the glass must be held at 45 degrees, so every time I encountered Pils on the pavement (and there were several), I pointed my camera 45 degrees down and took two-minutes-worth-of-photographs. Notice how in the final photograph, the white foot stepped in at the last minute - just the time the frothy head would be forming, if a Pils were being poured. By stepping forth towards the froth, a headless foot lends a hand - saves the daydream. I was ahead of myself with this 'beer idea'. It's as if I'd been waiting for the 'white foot' to come along, all along.

I’m drawn to the thin veins in the table-dancer’s legs - their rhythmic relationship with the rippling, white braiding of her skirt (evident in the first two images). And the plot of Vian’s ‘The Froth on the Daydream’? It’s a long story about a short marriage. Woman falls ill upon her honeymoon with a water lily in the lung, a life-threatening and rare condition that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers. Her husband struggles to provide enough flowers, and she dies.