Figures Of Speech

Maybe There Were Singing Carols

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This shot was taken in a store in Port Carling, Muskoka, when I was in northern Ontario at the invitation of the Canadian Tourism Commission three years ago. It was late September, but the Christmas decorations were in store windows throughout the state.

I asked permission to use my camera to shoot this window display and I was using a Canon EOS 3000, a film camera, at the time. It was a few months before I bought my Pentax K100D and in retrospect, I think I would have got a better result if I'd been shooting with a digital camera.

Why? Simply because I would have reviewed the shot on the LCD screen (which is not possible on a film camera) and tinkered with the settings if I wasn't happy with the result.

Yes, it was a challenging shot to take, because the window was in shadow, while the cars outside, on the main street, were in bright sunlight. I still like the shot, because it is a cross between inside-looking-out and outside-looking-in. It takes a few seconds to work out which aspect is which.

In the first version (above), I guess you have to look closely to ascertain that the silhouettes are not real people. In the second version (below) it is patently obvious that the figures are scale models. But that's the joy of a real photographic challenge. If the light isn't quite what you expect, use it to your advantage, by thinking about a change of composition.


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This Must Be The Abridged Version

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Last month, I posted a couple of shots of Princes Bridge here in Melbourne, but today I thought I'd choose a different country. This was taken in Port Carling, Ontario, in September 2005. It was a difficult shot, because of the strong light and deep shadows, but I tried to make the shadows play across the surface of the yellow sign.

The Port Carling post office is in the background and if you look carefully you'll notice it was a very calm day, because the Canadian flag is limp on its halyard. This bridge, at Indian River, is very special to me, because it is described in my forthcoming novel, Muskoka Maharani, to be published by Penguin Books India.

If you'd like to see a pictorial narration of the plot, with images of the places and scenes actually described in the novel, just go to an earlier post of mine, called B Is For Beginning.

Check out RuneE's "Building Bridges" theme at Visual Norway.

Northern Composure

Ah, Yes, The Moose Is Back

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

In September 2005, I was in Port Carling, in northern Ontario. I spent three days there and the place made such a huge impression on me that it figures very prominently in the opening and closing chapters of my next novel, "Muskoka Maharani" which will soon be released by Penguin Books India.

Everything I describe in the novel that is set in Port Carling is accurate statement of fact. The things I put on the pages are many of the things I saw and experienced on that trip. I make no secret of the fact that the place captivated me - fair dinkum, how many novelists do you know who choose a locale based on real-life experiences that span only three days?

One of the places I browsed through in Port Carling was a shop just across the street from the post office. Christmas was still more than three months away, but they had a huge selection of beautiful hand-made ornaments. I asked permission to use my camera in the store and the lady in charge smiled and told me to go right ahead.

I shot about a dozen frames and was about to put my camera away when I saw this sight, tucked away near the back window of the store. I'd never seen a Christmas moose before - and try as I might, I knew I would not be able to fit this display in my suitcase.

But trust me, I'll buy the moose on my next trip. I know I'll go back to Port Carling. One day....

Check out the rules at Camera Critters or go to Misty Dawn.

B Is For Beginning

Here's A Novel Way To Picture The Plot

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Have you ever taken a photographic journey through a novel?

I guess I'm lucky that I'm a photographer, because this means I can give you a glimpse at my next novel, "Muskoka Maharani", to be published by Penguin Books India. When I say "glimpse", I mean you can really see some of the real-life places where the novel goes.

This first shot (above) is taken at the U Dock of the Delta Sherwood Hotel in Port Carling, Muskoka, which is in the north of the Canadian province of Ontario. This is where an investigative Australian journalist must come in order to save his own career, his job and his way of life. It is here, in the pre-dawn light, that he attempts to interview a close-lipped woman in her eighties. Will she trust him enough to tell him her greatest secret, a revelation that could become the scoop of the year?

As you'll see in the post Booked For Life, my synopsis of the novel is simple and very brief....

The daughter of an embittered, hard-drinking Anglo-Indian engine driver from a little railway colony finally finds love in war-torn England. But it’s 60 years before she breaks her silence on how she helped unmask a German spy, and the aftershock takes an investigative Australian journalist all the way to the Vatican.

He thinks he is doomed and that his critical assignment has come to nothing as he spends a prolonged, uncomfortable silence with the old woman as she photographs and paints the stunning sunrise across the lake.


Eventually - completely unexpectedly - he wins her confidence. She spills out her life story, starting with her childhood in Marsdengunj, a remote Indian railway outpost, her time as a nurse in England during World War II and her eventual move to Canada.

She and the journalist spend hours in the picturesque dining hall of the Delta Sherwood. By the time she draws to the concluding portion of her life, the shadows of the setting sun are long and stark across the eastern lawn.


Among the high and low points of her life are:

• A ghostly eipsode from her teenage years
• Her mother's terrible post-natal depression that was not diagnosed
• The breakdown of her parents' marriage
• The mystery of what eventually happened to her mother
• The teenage love story that seemed so terribly thwarted
• How she found the man of her dreams amid the fear and loss of wartime
• The harrowing retreat of an army officer at Dunkirk
• How grave suspicions surface against a most unlikely person

But before she tells the journalist the last stages of her amazing story, she suggests that he should drive about 35 kilometres to neighbouring Gravenhurst. They come to this intersection .....

The description in the novel of Gravenhurst, a beautiful lakeside hamlet, is exactly as I saw it one afternoon in 2005, while I was photographing the area before taking a lake cruise.


But does the story end in Gravenhurst? No. What happens from this point on? You'll have to read the book to find out.

But now I throw thr forum open to every one of my readers. Now that I've shared this unusual journey with you, I'd be honoured if you could tell me what you think of it. Do leave me a comment with your frank opinion.

Lake (Very) Placid

More Blue And White Than Wedgwood Pottery

Port Carling, Canada. Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

A Blessed Place To Start A Novel

L Is For Lake

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

At the moment, I'm in the completion phase of my second novel, Muskoka Maharani, and one of the characters in the novel makes a startling revelation while standing in precisely the spot that I was standing when I took this photograph two years ago.

The character in my novel is a painter in her eighties who decides to finally tell an Australian newspaper reporter the greatest secret of her life. What she tells the reporter has wide-ranging consequences, but you'll have to read all about it in the novel. All I can tell you is that when she makes the decision to break her vow of secrecy, she is using oil and canvas to paint exactly the scene you see in this photograph.

In the meantime, here is my story behind this picture ....

If you believe in ferry tales, then Port Carling in Muskoka, Canada is the place for you. I'm standing on the boat dock of the Delta Sherwood in complete solitude.

There is nary a sound across the surface of Lake Joseph as I rise before dawn. It is half an hour to sunrise as I stand alone on the main dock. As the soft light appears in the sky, the still waters around me reflect the stunning array of early autumn colours of the spruce, maple, yellow birch, silver birch and dark green pine that form an arresting natural palette.

There is not a cloud in the sky as the sun shrugs the horizon's shackles and casts a shimmering shadow of slender liquid gold upon the ebony surface of the water. A few minutes later, that slim shadow has widened into a brilliant avenue of soft orange across the lake, probing both further and wider as the sun climbs.

If you could ever have a sound and light show without any sound at all, then I have been blessed with front-row tickets to this one. Suddenly, the sound of silence is eroded by the roar of a speedboat that heads unerringly eastwards, as if its helmsman is navigating down the centre of the avenue of light, controlling the motor's bass timbre.

A pity there are no steamboats on the lake today. That would have given me a real ferry-tale ending.

Wordless Wednesday

Time For Reflection At Port Carling, Muskoka

Canadian autumn, 2005. Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Easy, Chairs

I Graduated From Rest Point

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Anyone who has been to Muskoka will tell you that the region is famous for many things, among them the signature Muskoka chairs. The first time I sat in one, I could barely believe how comfortable it was. The broad wooden slats seemed as though they had been tailored to my body shape. When I came back home to Australia, I brought a miniature chair with me, to remind myself of their unique design. These two chairs were beside a lake at Port Carling. There could not have been a more tranquil scene.