My historical novel In the Blink of an Eye was written to illustrate and honour an iconic photographic partnership between two men, D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, but when it came to writing their story, I found myself focussing on the women who surrounded them. This arose from the writer’s instinct to look for the parts of the story which hadn’t been told, and not surprisingly it was the voices of the sisters, daughters and wives I thought needed to be heard.
Some of these women, like Elizabeth Johnson Hall,a fisherman’s wife, were brought into the limelight only by the images that celebrated them. Others, like Jessie Mann, a photographic assistant, remained until recently clouded in obscurity. Amelia Robertson Hill is a different case, but I’d be surprised if many of my readers have heard of her.
Amelia Paton (as she was at birth)…
View original post 804 more words
A Sweet Disorder 