🌞   🌛
John Arthur Nichol

  • As the bus flies down the Burnt Bridge Creek Bypass, a glimpse of the bike path flashes past. Two riders emerge from a tunnel and disappear beneath the road.

  • A little boy stands at a public phone in Dee Why, deeply engaged with his mother, who squats beside him. She passes him the phone receiver and he uses two hands to hold it to his ear. He listens. His face lights up.

    At the end of the call he says: ‘I spoke to Daddy!’

  • A man is collecting prescriptions at the chemist. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘for Valerie and the dog, Bella.’

  • As we cross the Parramatta River, seven kayaks paddle towards the Iron Cove Bridge.

  • Two women clash on York Street, strolling in bright red and hot pink, side by side.

  • The Spit. A middle-aged man in slacks and shirt (no helmet) sits astride his motor scooter, arms folded, unimpressed, as a man in high-vis points to the scooter parking area.

  • Rainy Window

    Looking out through a window with rain pouring down the glass, between four brown, rounded vertical blind slats. Everything outside is distorted by water on the glass, so that the view is like an abstract pattern: aqua-blue on the left, muddy grey and white at the top, brown at the bottom, green and grey in the centre and expanding upwards to the right, with patches of shadow and deeper colour here and there. Low down, in the centre of the window, something small and white is stuck to glass, and the water flows around it.

  • It’s a drone war, the first, no dissem’lin’,
    But ‘drone’ is a bit of a gremlin:
    There’s the flying device,
    Then there’s taking advice
    From the drones who inhabit the Kremlin.

  • Evening Rainbow, Collaroy Beach

    A wet, shiny main road in the early evening, and cars with their lights on. Across the road, four Norfolk Pine trees stand in silhouette against a blue sky that shades to grey on the horizon. A band of pink runs through the middle of the sky where a skinny rainbow curves up from the roof of a long, two-storey building with big, arched windows. The rainbow climbs steeply and exits half-way along the top of the photo.

  • A young woman walks round to the front of the Dee Why Grand, whose facade is concealed by scaffolding. She wears dark blue cargo pants and a pink, long-sleeved high-vis shirt, both with fluorescent strips. Her hair is long, dark and pony-tailed.

    As she walks, she keeps looking up at the facade as if she’s waiting for something to happen, and each time she does this she checks her watch.

  • Across the road a baby travels in a pouch, legs swaying with its mother’s steps.

  • On Spit Road in Mosman, a service pit has collapsed into a sinkhole. This danger to pedestrians is flagged with a pair of fluorescent plastic posts, but as these have themselves fallen into the hole, three witch’s hats have been added to the perimeter.

  • The Spit Bridge must be up, because traffic is banked up almost to the top of the hill on Manly Road. The young woman in front of me just sits for ages, but finally begins to read ‘The Girl on the Train’.

    ‘The Girl on the Bus’ isn’t written yet.

  • In the cardboard polling booth, a tiny old man fusses with his vast Senate voting paper. He has Elvis sideburns, and lots of dark hair in a faithfully executed Elvis quiff. His suit trousers are black with pinstripes, and he wears a white shirt and braces. He departs slowly, stiffly, and doesn’t swivel his hips.

  • On George Street in the city, a woman waits to cross King Street with her dark-haired, school-dressed daughters.

    One daughter, five or six years old, is dancing on the spot, alternating feet in a vigorous double-hopping motion. The other girl, head down, standing as still as a statue, gazes at her phone. She’s nine or ten.

    Without looking up or losing focus, moving only her feet, the older girl suddenly joins in the double-hopping dance with her little sister. It lasts a couple of seconds, then she’s a statue again.

    Their mother stands between them with a crooked mouth, staring into space.

  • Instrument

    The Instrument Repair Shop

    A street corner on an overcast day. A two-storey building takes advantage of its corner location with a third frontage, which faces the intersection on an angle so that advertising can be seen from multiple directions. The bottom storey is a glass-fronted restaurant with signs saying ‘Oporto’, and an awning bolted to the top storey. The top storey is red brick, with two old, timber-framed windows and an air-conditioner on the side. The angled section has a sign saying ‘Ben Dickson Instrument Repairs’, with a web address. Beneath this, another old, timber-framed window has its panes covered by two signs. One sign says ‘Service and Repairs’, and the other says ‘Woodwind and Brass’.

    March Photoblog Challenge Day 26

  • Little Putin is singing a song:
    ‘I have columns of tanks that are strong.
    And you’ll know you’re alive
    In a T-55,
    Though you mightn’t be knowing it long.'

  • Stony Silence with Resting Pigeons: Collaroy Beach

    Grass covers the foreground, with a bench in the corner. Thick, tall Norfolk Pine trees, and a fence, line a walkway above the beach. The sky is pale grey, the surf a fraction darker, and in the distance, headlands gradually fade into a misty backdrop. Where the fence ends, near the centre of the photo, is a grey stone statue of a woman sitting with hands in her lap. A woman is walking past. On the grass in the foreground, two pigeons rest and a third is on its feet.

  • Spice

    So ... The Spice Shop has Closed Down

    A tiled shop-front with two big windows and a glass door plastered with signs and stickers. Inside the two big windows, grey holland blinds are pulled down almost to the bottom, with a small Australian flag in front of the nearer blind. Above the shopfront is a red, hanging sign saying ‘Nepalese Store’. The windows reflect passing traffic and a man seated on a bench.

    March Photoblog Challenge Day 25

  • Two women, strangers, stand adjacent at the lights. One wears a fluorescent green face-mask, and the other has luminous red hair.

  • A high school boy sits with his dad at the cafe. They talk and laugh and smile. Someone approaches their table; a girl with short red hair, dark eyebrows and a smile. She places a milk shake in front of the boy but he doesn’t look at her, just pulls the milk shake close and delivers a long, deep nod of acknowledgement. He lowers his head, and sucks.

  • A Chinese man on York Street: white shirt, beige chinos. He’s middle aged, with dark hair and glasses, and presents as a visitor taking in the sights; strolling, casual, hands behind his back.

    His eyes disrupt this image. They’re hooded, watchful, and his darting gaze is full of cold assessment.

  • A young woman blocks the seat beside her with an orange bag. She has broad shoulders crossed by wide, dusty blue straps, and long hair tied in a bun with the ends splayed out. She bends her head to a rising salad and shovels. Her jaws work. Her cheek twists and bulges.

  • Alone, an angry Korean girl leans on a bike stand by the road, raining down syllables of fury on the iced drink in her hand. The ice cream melts in despair.

  • Between Lewisham and Summer Hill, the trackside graffiti says ‘Bark Bark’. A little further along, it changes to ‘Barka Barka’. This is where the Italian dogs live.