When I first photographed fifteen-year-old Devonn three years ago, I hadn’t even an inkling that I would start a secondary career as a self-publishing author. Having cut my literary teeth on my first novel, Circles of Confusion, I embarked on the much longer, more complicated Ashes on the Tongue which tells the story of Fen, a young girl in Northern Ireland in the 1950s, just before The Troubles really took hold. I always saw Devonn as Fen and a quick look through my archives revealed the first picture on the left which I thought was perfect. The strip below shows the progression from the original photograph to the processed version to the cover design and, finally, to the first advertisement after the book was published. The font used for the title is called Requiem and I liked it so much, I have used it for all my covers. As the sequel to Ashes – Then Sings My Soul – is well under way, it looks like I’ll soon be having another trawl through the archives.
