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John Arthur Nichol

  • 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.

  • Court

    The dog park at Long Reef includes a tennis court, for dogs who are serious about ballplay.

    A big area of rain-wet grass begins in the foreground and extends to a line of wind-blown bushes in the distance. Three trees and a stump stand in the middle distance. In the left foreground is the corner of a children’s fenced-off play area, and just past that is a blue tennis court with a big, spreading tree overlooking it. The tennis court is wet and shiny from the rain. The sky is pale blue, with dark and light clouds.

    March Photoblog Challenge Day 24

  • A Delightful Message to Passers-By

    The closed double doors of a restaurant, framed in red and trimmed with roughly painted gold. In the right-hand window hangs a sign saying ‘Closed’. Beneath the sign are the opening hours, and a sheet of white paper with a message written very clearly in beautiful, caligraphic script. The message says: Dear customers, we are closed for the time bing. Some damages are occurred inside the restaurant that needed repairment. We will resume our business as soon as possible. Thank you - Tibetan Peace Restaurant.

  • Little Putin, the saddest of boys,
    Fills the Kremlin with sorrow and noise:
    ‘My big brother Xi
    Doesn’t listen to me,
    And he won’t let me play with his toys.’

  • At Long Reef, two big, serious dogs cross the road to the park and wait to be released. As the woman bends to their collars, another dog appears that is small, hysterical and yellow. It leaps like a jumping bean, up and down, back feet leaving the ground and body vertical in the air. The woman fights her way to the lead and removes it, standing back, but the little dog just closes the distance and bounces, bounces, every way she turns.

  • A small girl in pigtails twists around in a trailing hand. Destinations don’t interest her. She wants to see what they’re leaving behind.

  • A big black dog, densely furred and fluffy, tours Newtown with a retinue of two small girls, a grandmother and a man with curly dark hair. They pause in the shade, and the dog lies panting.

  • A Chinese girl in a white mask, feet together on the footpath, stands looking down at the phone in her hands. She’s dressed in a football jersey that’s way too big, and light grey tracksuit pants so baggy they’re almost comical. There is, however, some tension in the set of her brow, and it appears she’s being serious.

  • A tall young woman, one brow raised and a twist to her mouth, gazes down the length of her arm at a phone. She’s dressed in grey scrubs and standing with a hip cocked, redefining cool.

  • Walking along the footpath in Millar Street, Drummoyne, I happen upon a massacre of grapes.

  • I’m a coward, says Vladimir Puting:
    You’ll never get me near the shooting.
    Put some stooges in place
    For my stand-in to face,
    Then I’ll let you get back to the looting.

  • Chance

    Chance encounter with the past, as bottles rise from 60 years beneath a carpark

    Three old-looking, dirt-caked, clear glass bottles lie on a patch of brown soil littered with broken bricks, loose stones and terra cotta pipe. The left-most bottle, beside a stretch of rusty mesh, has the classic shape of a Coca Cola bottle, and part of the brand name is visible, cast in the glass. The middle bottle is tall, with a heavy green base and a broken neck, and the last bottle is a small rectangle with rounded shoulders. Between this and the tall bottle lies the broken neck of a brown beer bottle, filled with dirt. All around, bits and pieces of glass and bottles lie scattered on the surface or half buried in the dirt.

    March Photoblog Challenge Day 23

  • At Dee Why the line for the B1 stretches almost back to Howard Avenue, and half way along it, before the bus has even reached her, a woman waves gleefully at someone on board.

  • Three high school girls huddle in a bus shelter. Two squeeze together on the seat and one crouches in front like a windbreak, gazing at the sky.

  • Girl on bus, in outbursts punctuated by mumbled replies, giggles or silence:

    ‘Why do you want to use my camera?’

    ‘No-wa!’

    ‘Oh! You dog! No-o! Eww! Delete that!’

    ‘No way! Oh my god you idiot!’

    ‘That is so RAW!’