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John Arthur Nichol

  • In Bakhmut the flanks are eroding;
    In Russia the tanks are exploding;
    Kinzhal is passé,
    The aggressor is prey,
    And the dugouts are dark with foreboding.

    🇺🇦 #Ukraine

  • The Wedding Spot

    A photo taken from inside a restaurant on a sunny day, looking across the outdoor terrace to a wedding party on the sand. Beyond lies the ocean with an exposed rock shelf, and a blue sky with banks of white cloud. The bride and groom, only just visible among attendees, stand beneath banners of white material hanging on a bamboo frame. In the foreground a woman stands at the restaurant doorway, looking out at the wedding, and diners on the terrace also watch with interest.

    Long Reef Beach, Sydney

  • Phone in lap, buds in ears, a man in the bus shelter gestures, frowns, shakes his head and his fingers, points, cajoles and argues, just as he might do over a cafe table. But of course, he’s the only one there.

  • A dark-haired woman passes by with her red walking frame and two Aldi chiller bags. She wears long grey pants, sandshoes and a chequered coat. Her face is pale and weathered.

  • A skinny, bare-footed boy with a mop of hair runs past, in long grey trousers and a lemon yellow polo shirt from school. He vaults onto a pointy bicycle stand and hangs there with his legs splayed, risking his future, then slides down to safety and runs on.

  • The dog park is busy. Two dogs frolic together, and a girl does cartwheels around them.

  • A girl of seven years, perhaps, kitted out for school sport in blue shorts and t-shirt, waits at the lights with her grandmother. The girl has a huge pack of toilet paper, and hugs it to herself as if it’s the most special thing in all the world. Her grandmother smiles at her. She wears a big polka dot top and glasses.

  • A man crosses the street in a full body wetsuit, zipped up tight. His left leg wanders sideways as he walks, and it makes him look bow-legged.

  • A girl glides on a bicycle, one leg fully extended, the other bent at the knee and lifted. Only her hair moves, flying in the wind. She slips between sandstone blocks and away, down to the beachfront.

  • Close Encounters of the Doggy Kind

    Two dogs meet on a long, shaded footpath by a sunlit road. One is a small white Pomeranian and the other is a big, heavy Rottweiler. The Pomeranian, alone on a bench, stands looking down in alarm at the Rottweiler, which is passing by with its owner and glancing up at the Pomeranian. The Rottweiler’s owner has paused, looking back because of the Pomeranian’s outraged barking. Both dogs have red leads. Standing in the distance is a third dog, held by a seated woman and looking on anxiously.

  • A man, a chocolate Labrador and a small helmeted boy on a skateboard cross the road. The man leans forward, clutching the boy’s shoulder and tottering after him. The dog trots behind.

    All three of them are grinning.

  • Sydney is awash with snow white Pomeranians.

  • A man with curly grey hair takes in the winter sunshine, head tipped back, legs stretched out, arms extended on the back of the bench.

  • A baby coughs in the wind, as grandparents rattle a paper bag from the pie shop.

  • A woolly, red-jumpered woman holds a little white shape, like a pixie’s suit bag cut off half way down the arms. It hangs against her black trousers, on a string.

  • A tiny girl crosses the road, in a black three-quarter jacket over colourful leggings. She looks up at her grandmother and speaks, brushing blonde hair from her eyes, but her words are lost in the wind.

  • A swallow rides the wind high above, its wings opening and closing like a blinking eye.

  • Winter fashion in Collaroy: white bob, sunglasses, black overcoat, black scarf, black shoes; baggy black trousers tight at the ankles, rippling in the wind.

  • Bushfire Days

    A dirty orange sky above clustered city buildings, with the sun a white ball of light surrounded by a thick yellow band. The photo is taken at an angle so that all the buildings are leaning sharply to the left. The sky’s colour darkens and reddens the sandstone of an old building on the right, adding bands of red to the green copper dome, and turns the foliage in the foreground to a dull brown. Tall concrete buildings on the left are a darker tone of the sky’s colour.

    Sydney CBD

  • Just a crack allows Putin the floor.
    All he needs is a foot in the door.
    So a Wimbledon tent,
    An Olympic event,
    Give a tacit thumbs-up to his war.

    🇺🇦 #Ukraine

  • May Putin, whose targeting’s vague,
    Dwell in darkness with bucket and plague,
    And, for all of his crimes,
    Live in interesting times,
    Which they’re certain to be in the Hague.

    🇺🇦 #Ukraine

  • An event meant to limit his years,
    Is for Putin, the sum of all fears;
    So the Night of the Dome
    Isn’t playing at home,
    Cause it might give his people ideas.

    🇺🇦 #Ukraine

  • A Confusion of Angles

    Looking through the balustrade and supports of a 19th Century carved sandstone staircase from close-up. The top railing is massive, carved and fluted, echoing the sharp upwards angle of the sandtone base. Between them, each upright is a squat pillar carved into a shape like a chess piece, a queen or a rook, perhaps, with broad rectangles, narrow lips and delicate, flowing curves. Their mirror image uprights are visible beyond slate-grey steps whose edges are painted white, and through the gaps the planes of a sandstone building and its windows disrupt the symmetry of the columns. In the foreground a single, browning leaf lies curling between two uprights.

    Sydney Town Hall, Druitt Street

  • Two older women walk past and they’re gone, leaving a snatch of conversation in their wake:

    ‘Anyway Kerry, unbeknownst to me …’

  • A pigeon wobbles towards me on the wind, wings extended, undercarriage locked in place.