‘This Moment’ is gone

On going through my inbox last night, I learned of the death of Alan Edwards, the photographer whose images I used for the two Romantic Fiction CDs, and whose blog (This Moment) was a regular source of surprise and pleasure. It seems strange to say of someone that they were a friend when we only met once, but such is the nature of the ‘net and blogging that Alan feels like a friend lost.

Alan came to my attention when I discovered that he had mentioned
the Houdini Box in his blog. In fact he turned out to have spoken
extensively to Lynsey about her songs at the end of a gig. Soon
afterwards he commented on an Incredible String Band gig about which
I’d blogged, and our correspondence took off from there. His blog had
four strands – his evocative photography, specialising in ambiguous
imagery; links to photography and art-related sites he’d discovered;
quotes from novels, poetry and plays; and, less frequently, stories
from his life. For a while it became the first one I checked each day,
and the comments on his blog introduced me to a wide circle of friends’
blogs.

I fell in love with a series of photos he’d taken of water flowing over stones, and he kindly let me use one for Fiction 1. For Fiction 2
I chose a study in blue of a bird on a fence, and used a picture of me
that he took at a Houdini Box gig for the back sleeve (and most of my
publicity material). He wanted no money for their use and was happy
that I liked them. It emerged from our mail that he was working on a
song about Johnny Cash and I nearly got to play on the session, but the
dates didn’t work out.

Finally one day last summer he agreed to
let me buy him lunch and a drink in gratitude for the photos. I found,
as I expected, an intelligent, dry, witty, and well-read man. We shared
a long history of our experiences as music fans and as musicians and we
parted saying we’d meet more often. He must have been ill at that time,
and referred occasionally to a ‘bit of trouble’ but didn’t make much of
it.

Last year, shortly after I’d visited the Algarve, Alan
blogged in depth about a holiday he’d had there at the same time. As
well as a long series of delightful photos, there was more detail than
usual about his own thoughts and reflections, and a poignant but funny
tale of a girl in the pool catching his eye as he watched from the
balcony.

I don’t know of the circumstances of his death and
how expected it was, but given that his wife requested donations to St
Columba’s Hospice it must have been expected.

Go to his blog
and read the comments that follow the last, sad, photos he published.
Here was someone who was loved and appreciated by people who’d never
met him. You may miss him too.

Alan’s photographs show why he chose the Mike Heron song This Moment for the title of his blog:

This moment
Is different
From any before it
This moment
Is different
It’s now.

Goodbye Alan, and thanks.