Not The Bermuda Triangle

There's Always An Angle If You Look Closely

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This shot was taken about six months ago, long before I even knew what this week's theme would be. I was killing about 90 minutes in Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon, before catching a flight to Vancouver and beginning the long haul home on Air Canada.

It was a beautiful autumn evening and even though there was heavy, unseasonal snow on the mountains around, it was warm in the sun. I was just in a T-shirt and jeans as I walked briskly around the city, trying to identify and shoot every arresting sight possible.

I was actually going the other way at an intersection when I looked to my right and saw the brightly painted exterior woodwork on the Town And Mountain Hotel. I had two Pentax cameras, both DSLRs, around my neck, one with my 18-125mm lens and the other with my 70-300mm lens.


But what I really wanted was to get halfway across the pedestrian crossing to frame this shot. All the way across on the other side and I wouldn't be able to frame it this way. So I waited for the lights to change, crossed halfway and dropped anchor.

To the puzzled driver in the SUV who watched me draw a bead on the shot and hit the trigger, I hope my grin and my explanation that I'm from the Land Down Under was sufficient.

But this week, as I located this shot for this specific post, I was puzzled about an important detail. Why on earth would I have wanted to get halfway across the street to shoot this when I had a long lens on one camera? I could easily have composed the shot from where I stood on the other side.


In less than sixty seconds, I had my answer. Friends and family often ask me how on earth I can remember the smallest, seemingly inconsequential details about a photograph taken months earlier. In this case, I had the evening sun right in my eyes from the other side of the street.

Yes, I could have framed the same shot from the other side, but the strong light would have washed out the colours in the shot I really wanted to capture. By venturing and stopping midway down the pedestrian crossing, I was able to shoot straight up as the sun was totally obscured by the building.

Here's the ultimate test. Can I remember which T-shirt I was wearing? Probably not.


Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Triangle''.

Going Neck And Neck

This Race Is Sure To End In A Tie

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Yes, they're my ties. Yes, I have a fondness for striped ties. No, I don't only wear striped ties - I have others as well. Yes, I wear a tie and suit to work.

And yes, a lot of my ties are chosen by Mrs Authorblog and the Authorbloglets.

Even when I was in boarding school at St Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling, we had to wear striped ties seven days a week. We had no problem with that, as the weather in the Himalayan town, famous for its schools and it tea gardens, was always cold.

Down on the plains, in the sweltering Indian summer, it would have been an uncomfortable imposition to wear a tie to school every day. But up in Darjeeling, nestled among the mountains, it was never a problem.


On normal class days, we wore dark grey suits with our striped house ties. Each house was named after one of the Jesuits from the school's early days and I was in Fallon house, with a proud eagle as its symbol and with a house tie that was resplendent in dark blue, light blue and burgundy.

On Saturdays we wore the North Point school tie with our dark blue blazers and light grey slacks and on Sundays we wore the same tie with our dark blue suits.

And what colour was the school tie? Light blue stripes on a dark blue background - so it's easy to see why I still have striped ties in my wardrobe. And yes, I still have a North Point tie.


Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Striped''.

Hands Christian Andersen

Yes, Time Really Does Stand Still Here

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

It’s always interesting to present this weekly pictorial theme with a slight interpretative twist. As this week’s subject is Hands, I thought about several options, including shooting a few frames aboard a crowded train, with several sets of hands holding one of the horizontal stability bars.

Then as I was walking through the Southbank area I remembered that there is a strategically-located store where you can get just about anything, from a pair of shoelaces to getting your name engraved on a trophy or even having a spare key cut.

It’s one of those places where a single person behind the counter has a variety of skills and can solve a problem for you while you wait. Lost the heel on your shoe? He’ll fix it. Your watch battery has bitten the dust? He’ll open up the timepiece and not only replace the battery but clean the interior mechanism as well.

And there is a four-frame frieze painted on the exterior window, as you come up the stairs from the Langham Hotel. This is the first of the frames. Like they say: many hands make light work.


Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Hands''.

Soldiering On

Commemoration Of A Short But Treasured Life

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Making the most of the photo opportunities during a trip to the west coast, I took this shot just as I was leaving Kings Park in Perth, last Sunday. It was a scorching hot day with the mercury hovering close to the 100 Fahrenheit mark and after spending about an hour in the sprawling 400-hectare park (that’s about 1000 acres) I was keen to find some shade when I spotted this sight.

Commemorative trees for soldiers have an interesting history here in Australia. About 20 years ago, while driving from Melbourne to Adelaide, we passed through Ballarat and I noticed little plaques beside a long row of trees on each side of the Western Highway.

The next time we did the trip, I measured the distance and was surprised to discover that the Avenue of Honour, as it is called, stretched for more than 20 kilometres. It is by far the longest of its kind in any Australian city or town.

Each tree was planted in honour of a Ballarat citizen who volunteered for active service, with a plaque bearing a cross for each one killed in action. I did a rough calculation based on the estimated distance between each tree and I have to admit that I was astounded by the result.

I estimated about 3500 trees, but I researched this calculation yesterday and found that the official figure is almost 3800 trees.

This solitary tree, on the other side of the country, is living testament to a much-loved son killed in 1918, in the last months of World War I. He was not just a son of the family whose surname he shared, but a son of this nation as well.

Visit TNChick's Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Aftermath".

Spin Doctor

Where’s A Number Cruncher When You Need One?

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

At the outset, let me assure you I am no gambler. I don’t care about racehorses. I couldn’t give a fig about greyhounds. The gambling gene simply passed me by. Simple as that.

But I was in Dawson City in the Yukon recently and of course I had to check out the historic venue Diamond Tooth Gertie’s, famous not just for being a non-profit casino but also for its excellent floor show. This shot was taken just before the cabaret started, while I was trying to get the best results in low-light conditions.

Yup, you could say I was gambling on the light.

Visit TNChick, creator of Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Hope".

True Blue

The Day When Sky And Water Almost Merged

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Before you dive into a pool, what's the first thing you should do? Always check to see if you need to take a photograph first. These shots were taken while we were in Langkawi, Malaysia, in July this year.

The two wisps of cloud seemed to have been made-to-order in the first frame, because they literally emphasised the brilliant blue of the sky and the reflection in the water of the pool. There was no one in the pool at the time, but the ripples were caused by the caress of the tropical breeze.

The time elapsed between the first and second frames was only three minutes, but it's interesting to see that the clouds haven't even changed shape. There was only a minute between the second the third shots, but all three shots were framed differently, using the surrounding trees as counterpoints to the sky.

There's an interesting perspective at work in all three of these frames. The blue of the ocean is one segment and the blue of the Sheraton Langkawi pool is the lower segment and I can't help but wonder if you realised that when you first looked at these shots.

The furled white flag is actually planted on the hotel's private beach, directly below the pool. The point at which you can see the angled reflection of the flag itself is the point at which the pool perimeter ends and the ocean begins.


Visit TNChick, creator of Photo Hunt. Today's theme: "Blue".

Rack 'Em Up

Marie Antoinette? Naaaah, It's Marie Antler-Net

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

With this week's theme being "Wild", I figured I'd keep you in suspense here. Did I manage to creep up behind an old moose with tatty antlers? Hmmmm, the focus is certainly on the state of that rack.

So let's keep the camera in roughly the same frame and simply switch the focal plane, in order to see what's in the background .....

So, I have to confess I wasn't really up close and within whispering distance of an old bull moose. No, sirreee, I was using my camera at the gas station at the aptly-named hamlet of Moose Creek in the Yukon.


It's all good, I'll just switch off the GPS because I think I can figure out exactly where we are on the Alaska Highway.

This moose (below) was a great subject, but I have to say he was a little, er, wooden.


And if I step around him very carefully, I might even be able to get a shot of this rusty old truck with a great hood ornament.


Yup, I guess the horn is definitely in good condition. However, I suspect that the rest of the vehicle might not quite match up.


I just hope you had as much fun as I did. Next time, I'll see y'all at Moose Creek.

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String Quartet

Thank Goodness I Don't Have Tennis Elbow

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This sequence was shot some weeks ago, using the wonderful SMC Pentax-DA 1:2.8mm macro lens. I thought these would be perfect for this week's "string" theme, especially since I used to cover Wimbledon as a tennis writer.

You know the strings that criss-cross your tennis racquet? There was a story that Bjorn Borg's Donnay racquets used to be strung to such high tension that it was not uncommon for them to snap in the middle of the night, even before he had struck a ball with them.

Every grand slam tournament has its own racquet stringers and I once read an interview with a man who did the job at the Australian Open. He mentioned that players' representatives simply used to drop the racquets off to him, but occasionally one or two of the stars would drop by to thank him for a job well done.

The racquet in these shots is just a standard Wilson - and I took the shots in our front yard, not in a studio. I simply wanted to test the lens in normal conditions. That's why I started out by shooting the tiny knot that shows the end point of the racquet-stringing technique.

I thought the lens was really good, because it even showed up specks of dust on the racquet frame, so then I started shooting the mid-section of the stringed surface.

That's when I noticed something that I hadn't spotted with the naked eye. The magnificent lens was actually picking up minuscule pieces of fluff from the yellow Slazenger balls that I use.

Look carefully and you'll even see the light-and-dark pattern of the synthetic material that is used to string these racquets. And when I sat down to write this post, I recalled an interesting piece of tennis trivia. You see, yellow balls were introduced to make it easier for television viewers to follow the path of a ball on their screen.

So here's a trivia question, specially for you. Do you know when Wimbledon finally switched from white tennis balls to yellow tennis balls? Scroll to the bottom of this post for the answer.

(Trivia answer: Wimbledon introduced yellow tennis balls in 1986.)

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Rip Van Wrinkle

Street Musician Brings Harmony To Us All

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Sometimes a late reaction is better than no reaction at all. Mid-morning on 15th December, I had a couple of hours to kill in Singapore before catching a connecting flight further east. Rather than spend that time indoors, I caught a train to Orchard Street, an area that used to enchant me when I was in primary school.

The street, as I expected, was a rainbow of living colour, with Christmas decorations as far as the eye could see - so of course I walked briskly from one end to the other, shooting as I went.

I chose to capture not just the vibrant colours, not just the wonderful Yuletide sights. I wanted to capture the broad spectrum of life in the island state - its many subtleties and its many faces, its corporate wealth as well as the everyday scenes of its people. I stopped to shoot colourful garbage bins, I stopped to shoot a Buddhist shrine, I stopped to shoot unusual colours, I stopped to shoot the faces around me, for each one told a story.

In my hurry to cross an arcade, I almost missed seeing this man. I was about to walk past when the sound of a harmonica stopped me in my tracks. He was just playing, lost in his own world, as the shoppers and the tourists and the city workers brushed past him on either side.

I dug my hand into the pocket of my jeans and put some money into his open music case. He nodded and I reckon I must have taken three or four strides past him.

Then I turned back. I was, after all, trying to capture the many faces of Singapore - and he surely was one of them. I asked if I could photograph him and he nodded without missing a note.

Much later, when I had time to think aboard the next leg of my flight, it struck me that I should have taken the time to speak to him. I don’t know his name, I don’t even know how old he was. I didn’t know whether he took his spot on the pavement every day.

He seemed to have no teeth, yet he wore the attire of a young man. His face and arms were wrinkled, yet his wiry physique could have belonged to someone much younger. His neck was lined and weathered, yet his hair would have fitted comfortably on any rock star.

Maybe even the shirt, too.

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Simon Towel

Isn't He A Judge On American Idol?

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This shot was taken in Singapore last December. I've always found that the best way a photographer can really soak up a new place is to walk everywhere. Yes, taking public transport or driving a rental car is a convenient way to get around quickly, but there's nothing like walking briskly around and giving yourself the chance to look, observe and examine - as you stop at your leisure to photograph images that captivate you for a variety of reasons.

One of the places I wanted to check out in Singapore was Little India. Strangely enough, I'd never been there before and I have to say it was a great experience. I reckon I shot more than a hundred images under the huge roof of the complex, because the colours that confronted me were so rich, the fabrics were so stunning and the sights were so redolent of my own childhood years.

Do you ever find that you "see" more when you have a camera in your hands? Had I been browsing without a camera slung around my neck, chances are I would not have given this neat pile of towels a second glance. But I reckon they caught my eye because they were slightly askew and not in military-like order - and because of the way they were placed on the shelf of the store, which meant they were angled away from me.

New visitors to this blog might wonder if this photograph has been digitally enhanced in any way. The answer is no, because I never manipulate my images. These exquisitely soft cotton towels, manufactured in India, were simply vibrant in their coloour and contrast. I could not walk past them without asking permission to shoot them where they lay.

Nope, I've never been one to throw in the towel.

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Dark Vader

Never Be Afraid To Experiment With A Camera

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

More than three years ago, I was testing out a little Pentax Optio LF33, a very handy four-megapixel camera. At the time, I was strictly committed to using film and I had a brand-new Canon EOS 3000. But looking back on it now, it was the humble little Pentax that opened my eyes to the many benefits of using digital cameras.

I woke up long before dawn on a Saturday morning and drove into the city, because I wanted to check out how the camera performed in very low light. I had already earmarked several locations around the city, from where I would be able to shoot the first light of the day - literally. As I drove down the freeway, I was delighted to see that the weather forecast was accurate and that there was a lot of cloud.

I shot the city skyline in the dark, without using a tripod. Then I got back in the car and drove to a nearby bridge. From there I photographed the scudding black clouds across the sky - and their reflection in the surface of the Yarra River.

Then I shot scenes around the city, finally ending up on Flinders Street. I took a few shots of the station, with its distinctive dome, then I turned around and saw the first real splash of orange in the sky, low on the horizon.

Here was the dilemma. I was about a minute's sprint from my car. Even if I ran to the car and drove a couple of blocks, the light would have changed swiftly. So I bit the bullet and decided to take the shot, even though I wasn't in the best spot. The frame I shot is the one I've published with this post - and apart from the glow in the sky, you can see the distinctive shape of Federation Square.

It's not often I take a shot with almost half the frame in darkness - but I reckon it worked in this case.

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Cumulo Nimbly

Who Wants To Be A Cloud Controller?

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

I took these shots some months ago, because I was transfixed as a "normal" sunset suddenly produced purple and violet hues. A couple of minutes earlier, there was a huge wash of orange across the cloud bands when things changed swiftly and dramatically.

When you think about it, clouds have always been a metaphor for life. The phrase "dark clouds are gathering" denotes a particularly testing time, be it for an individual, a community or a nation.

"Cloud-cuckoo land" refers to a fanciful, imaginary place of unrealistic notions. "War clouds" are situations that threaten Man’s peaceful existence. "Storm clouds", apart from being large black clouds that signify a hostile weather pattern, also refer to personal problems.

No one seeks turbulence in their life; neither does anyone invite such a period. But no existence can be trouble-free. Humans are not clones of each other, hence by definition we must make adjustments and allowances for one another’s foibles. In order to co-exist in harmony, we all need to be sensitive to the thoughts and deeds of others.

Perhaps life would be boring if it were predictable. Those who read tarot cards or who can foretell the future in our palms or in patterns left by tea leaves might have a clearer vision of the future than the rest of us mortals. But to me life’s great challenge is its unpredictability.

I'd welcome your views on this theory I have - just as the greatest beauty in Nature's landscapes can be seen under rolling clouds, I think there is a strong human parallel. Perhaps when we are beset by life's problems, we discover resilience and strength we didn't know we possessed. Do you agree with that?

There is something special about clouds, too. Because they are a visible mass of moisture, they are subject to the very weather conditions that create them. No cloud stays stationary. No cloud stays the same shape forever. They morph. They move. They vanish.

In a country like Australia, a cloud is a possible promise of rain. All across a parched land, eyes are lifted in hope whenever an armada of black clouds appears.

Have no fear of the weather. Similarly, have no fear of life. No storm has ever lasted a lifetime.

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