G Is For Grace

Sometimes We Find It In Unexpected Places

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

There is no knowing where you'll find the next object on which to train your camera. This gracefully crafted piece of metalwork caught my eye one morning, in a beautifully maintained garden on the tropical island of Langkawi, Malaysia, in July last year.

It was part of a footpath lamp that was about two and a half metres tall and although this was shot early in the morning beside the beach, I was in deep shade cast by a canopy of tall trees.

I was able to stand on a step on the steep hillside to achieve the angle of shooting downwards on something that was actually a few inches taller than I am!

I framed this very deliberately to include the interesting but subtle reflection on the convex surface of the lamp in the top right-hand corner, as well as the muted tones highlighting the curved section of the painted metal in the bottom right-hand corner.

This composition also gave me some interesting (and varied) background hues to highlight my main subject, with the edge of the water only about thirty metres away.

Just for the record, have a look at the second shot (below). It's taken from exactly the same spot a couple of seconds later, with the same settings. But this time I changed the focus ring so that the metal was in soft focus and the hotel pool and the nearby sea were the main subject.

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