Adding writing

Book text



Now that I had a more final layout for my book, and especially after researching several photography books, I had to begin looking into the more finishing factors that would help tie the book together.

Because Sedgefield Ball game is such a unique event, and often difficult to explain to other people, I was concerned the images alone would not give a good enough indication to what the day is all about. I decided using some sort of writing, maybe placed at the beginning of the book would help give a bit more of an explanation. A lot of the books I have looked at so far have writing at the beginning either written by the photographer themselves, explaining what the images consist of, or they have had a piece of writing written for them. 

I felt a good starting point for creating some writing for my book would be to ask someone who knows a lot about the game and had attend the game many more years than I have. In many of my images from this day, this same character appeared throughout. This character was an elderly male from the village called Kenny. Kenny has lived in Sedgefield all of his life and attends Sedgefield ball game every year. I had considered interviewing Kenny and asking him a few brief questions about the day, but instead, as a starting point I chose to ask him to write his own account of Sedgefield ball game. I felt having someone who knows the game so well write their interpretation of the game would be much better than me writing something myself. 

Kenny very kindly wrote me his own explanation of Sedgefield Bal game and explained what it meant to him. I was extremely happy with what he had wrote and so incredibly grateful. The writing included humour and really showed Kenny's personality.

I then had to edit the writing down, as although I was really pleased with the writing Kenny had given me, my main aim was to make sure the writing which I placed in my book was clear an concise, in order for it to make sense to people reading the book who knew nothing about the game or tradition.

After typing up exactly what Kenny had written me, I created several versions of edited text where I placed my own words and explanation of the game among the words Kenny had written me.


Final outcome

By the time I got to my final draft which I was happy to use in my book, I basically ended up using the writing Kenny had provided me as a starting point more than anything else. I created my own body of writing biased upon the information he had given. Because I had edited down a lot of the writing Kenny had provided me with, I chose to put a quote from exactly what he had wrote for me, and I placed this in quotation marks and put his name at the bottom as seen here. 

Book Title


One key aspect of Kenny's writing which is something he did without me asking was titling the piece of writing. He called the writing "One hand over the eye". Which I feel sums up the Sedgefield ball game incredibly well. It really is a game you want to watch because of how fast paced and exciting it is, but because of the rough nature of the game you find yourself watching it literally peeking from behind your hands. Luckily I have been provided with this writing a long time before I had even began to consider what the title of the book could be. My initial ideas was just to called it 'Sedgefield Ball Game' or 'Sedgefield Ball Game 2016' however this title provided by Kenny, I feel, works perfectly.