What an extraordinary dream I had, I’d got this letter in the post to say I’d got a 1st class photography award and everyone was congratulating me, it was down on the beach at a rough house we were staying the night, perfect location.

In the night I’d been in hospital,there was a beautiful young dark skinned nurse, she knelt beside my bed as she used her camera phone to light up paperwork, I as startled at first because she was so close up and well lit, I thought she’d ducked under the covers!

I realised she hadn’t, it was just using her torch as the light spice reminded m of an oil painting exhibition I’d read of recently, these things come round every 10 or 5 years, oh yes, you heard of carravagio, but have you heard of . . . . 

Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768

Anyhow, she did her work, and while she was these I popped out my camera, there was a pop and a fizz, a bit of magic as some flash batteries discharged creating a ready printed contact sheet in the back view, quite effective I thought!  I must look into how this occurred, and that my friends is how I got my  1st class, a fluke really, but a topical one worth exploring, when I woke up none of it was true, there’s no such thing as a magical contact sheet!.

I was able to recreate something like it with a whole lot of work, but it was just trickery by now, barely even flattery.