Just before Christmas, a colleague of mine excitedly recommended a book she was reading (thanks, Kath!): The Doorbells of Florence
Basically, it was inspired by Losowsky’s random decision to photograph a bunch of doorbells in Florence. Fortunately, Italian doorbells are a lot more beautiful than my rather uninspiring doorbell, shown above. Anyway, once he had his bunch of doorbell pictures, usually including the names of the various tenants who occupied the building, Losowsky let his imagination run wild and he wrote short (usually very short) stories to explain something of the lives of the people living in the building. And that’s what is in this book. It’s perhaps a little hard to explain, but it’s just gorgeous and you should see it for yourself.
When I went to read a bit more about Losowsky and his doorbell project, I discovered that he’d first published parts of it on Flickr (the web home to billions of photos) as “Flicktion” – that is, a collection of Flickr photos which have a piece of fiction attached to them. It’s worth having a browse through the Flicktion tag over at Flickr to see what else other people have been doing. In any case, this book has got me totally inspired. I want to make my own! I’ve got so many ideas for what kind of objects I could “collect” to inspire some stories. And one day I’ll do it – just watch this space, okay?!
(In the meantime, if anyone can concoct a good story to match my uninspiring doorbell, I’d be most impressed. I don’t think I can do it.)
Tags: Andrew Losowksy, Flicktion
Okay, Flicktion? COOL! I’d never heard of it, but now I want to do some myself…
.-= Kristan´s last blog ..Loving, and writing, in spite of rejection =-.
I agree, it’s such a neat idea just waiting for us to have time to sit down and do it …
Your doorbell reminds me of Hal, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Maybe it’s evil… maybe it will try to keep you locked inside… maybe I have an overactive sci-fi geek imagination
Glad you loved it too. When I read it I felt like it was new, and opened new doors (no pun intended). I found flicktion too and it’s inspiring for writers and teachers too, I would think.
Took up your recommendaton, btw, and adored reading Jasper Jones in the hols. Trying to get hold of the Road next, since you have great taste!
@Rhi, now I’m just a little bit scared … this doorbell fell off yesterday, do you think it was trying to tell me something? (I fixed it up straight away though …)
@Kath, glad (and not surprised) that you adored Jasper Jones. It was Andrew who lent me The Road so that good taste came from him, I can’t take the credit.