What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
- T.S. Eliot, ‘The Wasteland’ (19-24)
Mangrove lagoons on the southeast edge of Jenanah, a tiny island off the Abu Dhabi coast with no permanent human habitation. One of the smaller lagoon systems, but one of the nicest I’ve ever seen.
On a mountain road in Banff, Alberta. This is a young male bighorn sheep, probably just over a year old. He was mid-graze when I started to shoot, then struck and held this pose for a few minutes before apparently deciding he’d done enough modelling for one day and wandering off.
Taken in August of 2008
Great White Egrets fishing at sunset on the Bal Samand Lake in Jodhpur. The lake is man-made, part of the old ruling family’s hunting lodge, and the ruins of the buildings that used to stand in the lake bed before it was flooded are still visible here and there, like in this shot.
Taken in December 2009
Schoolyard cricket in the late afternoon at a small public school in Jodhpur. The grounds were right next to where I was staying, so I saw them every day. Interestingly, they didn’t so much want to talk about Indian cricketers as New Zealand ones, possibly because Shane Bond had just played his first test in two years and it happened to be a barn-burner against Pakistan. Also lots of praise for Daniel Vettori, aka ‘The Spinning Spectacled Man’ and Iain O’Brien, aka ‘The One With the Mad Hair.’
Taken in December of 2009
View out the window of the wing of an Etihad Airways Boeing 777, somewhere between Abu Dhabi and Toronto. I think I was mildly psychotic from sleep deprivation by this point in the flight, so I have not the faintest idea where we were. I couldn’t even narrow it down to a continent or major ocean. Taken on my trusty little Sony point-and-shoot, now at rest in that big studio in the sky. I miss that camera.
Taken in July of 2006
Interstate highway (so, technically, inter-province) through the Rockies in the Canadian Northwest. I’m fairly certain that by this point we were in Alberta (having come from British Columbia) but I could be wrong…
Taken in August of 2008
Dedication plaque outside the Nitobe Memorial Japanese Gardens at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Autumn (still can’t quite use the word ‘fall’) colours in Vancouver are gorgeous, but there is the tiny detail of the rain, which is incessant. So you have a window of approximately a week to enjoy the colour while it’s still actually on the trees. Soon after that it turns to something halfway between mulch and very pretty mud.
Taken in October of 2007
Young male bighorn sheep. The only reason they’re hanging out together, apparently, is because they’re too young to attract any females to form a herd with, and I guess misery loves company.
Taken in September of 2008
Taken with a little point-and-shoot Sony camera from a kayak on the Tortugero River in Costa Rica. It was an awesome camera, though, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Taken in June of 2006
