The little phrase ‘looking away’ suggests so many different things. There can be looking away as in averting your eyes, maybe from something you don’t want to look at because it is unpleasant in some way, or your gaze would be intrusive, or there is a surprise awaiting, or you don’t want to know something until later. There is also ‘looking away’ as turning away from helping someone, not noticing someone in need, not seeing the hungry tramp or the addled old person who only wants a few friendly words. That can include not wanting to know the truth or reality of something – maybe because it is personally painful, or maybe because looking and seeing would mean having to be involved, having knowledge and therefore a sort of responsibility for what happened.
In my title here, I mean physically looking away from a particular thing, but in order to see something else which might be interesting or different or previously unknown. I was standing taking a photo of a lovely bridge with a reflection in the river beneath it, but when I looked away, when I turned and looked up the river, I saw a completely different scene. I was looking not at a built-up old town, but an open countryside with a village church in the distance. I wasn’t seeing the old wharves and warehouses, but the banks of the river, with woods and beyond which I knew there would be meadows and pastures with cattle.There was a single tree changing colour, a splash of autumn russet against the tired green, there was a reflection too, of a single cloud. This was such a different view, just because I looked away.
Lois Elsden 