The Eighth Image

An aspiring and unemployed writer is commissioned to write a series of short stories to accompany a selection of photographs produced by a renowned photographer, Henry Graham Wilkes, whom no one seems to have met.

The writer seeks to track down and identify his unknown collaborator but soon becomes obsessed with the mysterious and elusive photographer. He grows increasingly uncertain if he is imagining the connections and coincidences he uncovers and observes. As he tries to track Wilkes’ movements by mapping the sites and locations of the images, he uncovers confusing and contradictory clues that reflect his own creative dilemma.

The resulting eight stories are eventually completed to reflect aspects of the locations and themes of the images he has been sent - but they are as much about the writer’s own beliefs, obsessions and uncertainties. Later when the photographer vanishes, the writer decides he must publish the work himself.