A Frond In Need Is A Frond Indeed

Cleopatra Would Have Been A Big Fan

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This post is dedicated to a (very) young man in Britain who is possibly my youngest reader. John (for obvious reasons, I won't identify him) asked his mother to contact me when I wrote the post Palm Reader, because he wanted to know if I had shot any other images in that sequence.

Yes, I did, and here they are at John's request, along with the story of why and how I actually shot them. We were on holiday on the Malaysian island of Langkawi at the time, and I was still blogging because I had my laptop with me. The weather was fairly stormy on the morning we flew in and while we explored the beautiful 40-acre property of the resort, I happened to spot this banana tree towering above me.

It took me a few seconds to work out what sort of tree it was, before I spotted the distinctive leaves, which are traditionally used in some parts of rural India as a substitute for plates. I figured it was a banana tree, but I'd never actually seen one where the branches fanned out in such perfect order, rather than growing at random angles.

It made an interesting silhouette against the dark, cloudy sky and I shot just one frame before walking on. The next morning, the weather had cleared, so of course I had to shoot the same scene and this time the bright green of the giant leaves worked beautifully against the clear blue sky. As I hit the trigger on this shot, I thought it looked like a giant Roman fan, of the sort that palace serfs would have held above Cleopatra to protect her from the elements.

But there was clearly a better angle to be had, so I explored the options with the shot below, which was the next one in the sequence. It was only then that I realised the most unusual angle, along with the geometrical precision of the fronds, would be best served if I composed a tighter frame - and you can see the best result here.

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