Lens of Brian

Man’s best friend

This charming fella tagged onto me as I did a two hour tour of an island in the Yasawas, Fiji. When I stopped for pictures, he stopped too, sat and got absorbed in doggy thoughts. He even introduced me to crab hunting on the beach and quickly taught me to turn over the rocks while he went after the crabs as they scurried out. Truly, man’s best friend.

Water Hyacinth clogs Lake Victoria. Kisumu, Kenya

Kisumu, Kenya: Lake Victoria is perennially clogged by a nuisance weed, the water Hyacinth. It often covers huge portions of the lake choking everything in its wake.In some areas it covers acres of water surface and over time,flourishes into a dense immobile ‘jungle’ of vegetation.Or so it seems…

An eery emptiness takes over Lake Victoria after the Hyacinth 'departs'

The water is crystal clear, tranquil and uncannily calm. All this happens literally overnight, when a huge storm whips up massive waves that lift up the entire plantation of Hyacinth and relocate it to another region, miles away. So what determines when it leaves and where it relocates to? The spirits of the lake, of course.

Lake Victoria looking pristine after the Hyacinth vanished overnight!

One morning, residents wake up and acres of Hyacinth have simply vanished!Literally without a trace.It’s a phenomenon that’s as bewildering as it is confounding.

Lush vegetation, Whitehaven, Whitsundays, QLD, Australia

The puffy contours on this patch of ebullient bush are reminiscent of fresh broccoli

Footprint in the sand, Whitsundays, QLD, Australia

Is the footprint sinking in or projecting outward?

While walking on the ash-like, fluffy sand of the appropriately named Whitehaven Beach in Oz, I couldn’t help remembering that poster. You know the one I mean, always right next to the Desiderata poster at the bookshop. Footprints . So I decided to recreate it, but the result startled me. On wet sand, it did resemble the original poster, but in dry sand, an optical illusion resulted. Now it seems like I’m buried under the sand and trying to push my foot out from underneath.

Footprints in the sand, Whitehaven, Whitsundays, QLD, Australia

So I huffed and puffed across the beach, to recreate what I had seen in the posters. Then later I came across this re-jigged version of the famous Footprints poem and just couldn’t help myself.

Buttprints in the sand

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some stranger prints appeared,
I asked the Lord, “What have we here?
Those prints are large and round and neat,
But Lord, they are too big to be feet.”

“My child,” He said in somber tones,
“For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to step out in faith,
But you only asked, “What’s that about?”

“You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know,
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt.”

“Because in life, there comes a time,
To take that step, to choose to climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand.”

Evening reflections, Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia

Like millions of diamonds scattered on the water’s surface, or snowflakes on a lake, it’s amazing what happens when the evening sun strikes the ocean surface at an unusual angle making the water shimmer and dazzle with tantalizing reflections of light. The hills shrouded in shadow, mist and distance provide an almost eerily imperceptible looming backdrop. You can barely make out the boat masts in the fading light…creepy but sublimely beautiful.

Pristine beach,95% silica. Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia.

Ignore the leaves,can’t stop the wind, but if ever there was a pristine beach, this would be it. Walking on pure, near snow-white silica (yes, that’s what sand is made of) is an ethereal experience. Having walked on this sand, which puffs between your toes like powdered cotton wool, all other beaches will bow their heads in shame when they see me walking up towards them, as they contemplate subjecting me to the equivalent of walking on brutal thorns.

My main inspiration however was the confluence of earth, sea and sky in the distance, with the near perfectly straight edge of sand and the water’s edge tapering off in artistic perspective into the horizon…and the inexplicable tilt of the ocean towards land leaving you wondering why it doesn’t simply all rush in!

Then man comes along…maybe even Brian…

This is what Brian does when no one's watching

Pristine photo taken, what better to do other than to wreck the place! But when you really look closely, it’s a work of art. The way the sand cascades from the sheer mini-cliff in little avalanches, leaving ever diminishing “rock-fall” in its wake from the precisely spaced barefoot stomps. What brilliant skill, what exquisite execution!

Coconut with attitude, Castaway Island, Fiji

“Oh dear, am I having a bad hair day?”

If you’re really passionate about photography, it’s amazing how easily mundane, even inane, everyday flotsam will capture your fancy and make you stop and snap. I was just strolling on the beach on the island where the movie CASTAWAY (Tom Hanks) was filmed and chanced on this coconut which had an uncannily human expression. The rest is history.