Cluster's Last Stand

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Dancer, Do

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This huge bush of yellow daisies is a great colour spot in the winter garden at Casa Authorblog. When little else flowers as the frost and ice thwart us, these daisies bloom as if their life depends on it.

Now, with only four weeks to go until spring arrives, the daisies have finally started to look a bit the worse for wear. As the newly-pruned rose bushes start to show new, tentative growth, these yellow beauties are in turn starting to show their age.

In a couple of weeks, we'll prune them back, savagely, as we always do. And next autumn they will sprout defiantly, reminding us that they will be back in all their golden glory when the nights get so much shorter and so much colder.


Visit Luiz Santilli Jr for the home of Today's Flowers.

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Dancer, Do

I'm Half Crazy, All For The Love Of A View

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

I often get asked, "How do you decide what to photograph?'' It's a complex question, because there is no single answer. I photograph things that catch my attention, or things that are quirky, or unusual angles, or uncommon sights, or simply sights that make me look twice. Where I see art may not be where anyone else sees art - but that is the joy of individuality.

Sometimes you see something and you can almost hear the sight calling out to you: "Photograph me". This was one of those occasions. I was walking past Federation Square on Friday, when the place was set up for The Great Australian Sunny Sizzle, which celebrates all abilities.

As I walked over, I saw this plastic flower in a pot, surrounded by blue and yellow tarpaulin and "beach sand". And yes, while you were reading this post, you DID notice the legs of the deckchair, didn't you?

Photography teaches me many things. I reckon I'm a fairly observant sort of bloke, but I could have sworn there was no breeze that day. The river was hardly rippling. But the petals on this "plant" were rotating steadily but silently in the gentle breeze on that grey afternoon. I just had to stop and shoot the scene. I'm a sucker for petal pushers.

(The Odd Shots concept came from Katney. Say "G'day" to her.)