Happy To Go With The Flow
Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON
You could be forgiven for thinking that this was shot in Spain, where the red-and-yellow colour scheme would be a great representation of the colours of the national flag. But no, this was taken in Malaysia.
It was our first full day in Langkawi. A brief early-morning storm had just gone through and the sky was starting to clear. I was fairly high up on the hilly 40-acre property that is home to the Sheraton and I’d shot a series of skyline shots, as well as some close-up frames of raindrops glistening on flowers and shrubs.
I guess it’s funny how your perception is heightened when you have a paintbrush, a sketch pencil or a camera in your hands. Every object in your immediate surroundings becomes a potential focus of interest.
With this in mind, I began walking downhill towards the hotel’s swimming pool, which is set against the backdrop of the Andaman Sea. That’s when I spotted this pipeline on the side of one of the villas that dot the property.
My initial instinct was to compose a tight horizontal frame, concentrating on the large lug nuts and segmenting the frame into a yellow-on-top and red-on-the-bottom essay. As I was about to hit the trigger, I noticed the green creeper emerging from the lush soil below.
Immediately, I changed the composition from horizontal to vertical, with the aim of including a solitary leaf. I guess that’s a gentle parable of life, isn’t it? No matter how heavily we rely on technology and man-made objects, we can never ignore the power of Nature.
