Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON
This photograph was taken in Calcutta, India on a very brief, unplanned trip in October 2006. The Hindu festive season known as the Puja holidays had just come to an end, and all the religious pandals (places of temporary worship, displaying images of Hindu gods and goddesses) were being dismantled. A lot of the apartment buildings in the city are illuminated with light festoons during the holidays, but these are all taken down and packed away after life returns to normal.
I caught sight of these lights at the side of a residential building in Ballygunge, in the southern part of the city. My children were with me at the time and it was (naturally) as if they could read my mind. As I reached for my camera case, they grinned and said in unison: "He's so going to take a shot of those lights.''
Yep, it was irresistible. The scene drew me like a magnet. All that coloured wire. All those light globes. How could I walk past something like that without capturing the scene? My only regret is that I never asked how many light globes it took to illuminate the building. Maybe I just wasn't bright enough.
(The Odd Shots concept came from Katney. Say "G'day" to her.)
