Hanging Pictures

F's office was gifted a set of big photographs (of shipping industry subjects) to adorn their walls. The place needs it - grey walls, gray floor, gray doors, grey tiles, grey furniture, grey settees in reception, and grey (as in stainless steel) business signage. It is the bleakest and most miserable place you could imagine anyone putting together as a workplace.

Designed by a man.

He doesn't work in it.

F hates it. F has hated it for all of the 3 years she has been there. Fortunately 2 of those three years have been interrupted by various work-from-home strictures.

Nine roughly A2 sized mounted photos arrived, and sat around in an empty office while everyone argued about which walls to put them on, argued about which ones they did or didn't want within the view from their desk, argued about the 'nice-ness' of the imagery..... Shipping isn't nice. Well, bits of it can be dressed up nicely, and some nice views can be captured from ships but cargo ships themselves are not conceived by artists, the activities they engage in are not written  for orchestral recital, and their general physiognomy is one of industrial complexion.

Photos of the industry itself, and of the people working it, often convey a grittiness that nice office people can't identify with. F used to work in the logging industry - lots of similarities.

So these photos aren't pretty in any conventional sense but 6 of them are colourful; hi-vis is popular in dangerous workplaces. The other 3 are monochrome. For one of a ship caked in ice and sailing in freezing fog, monochrome works well. It also works well in a photograph taken in the back of an old workshop in a ship repair yard to focus on the shapes without the distractions of the colours. There is an oiliness to it. Grime.

Cranes in monochrome stand out against light sky... office people don't seem to be impressed by cranes. "Don't put that on a wall near me."

F sorted the pictures into landscape and potrait, sized them up for the gaps between structural pillars and full length windows, and having ignored the griping about the subject matter, placed them around the rooms on the floor beneath where they would fit on bits of wall, and left it one day for comments.

Everyone works from home on a Friday.

So having received no objections .......

.........we all went in today (Saturday) and I supervised the measuring and marking and drilling of holes and hanging of pictures. Mr B did the drilling and screwing bits.

Job done.

It will be Tuesday before anyone sees it.

I shall refuse to go to work that day.

The ungritty ones....