Ha, Ha Monica

For Me, This Performance Struck A Poignant Note

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Sometimes a face just stops you in your tracks. Then, despite the fact that you have a camera around your neck and media credentials in your wallet, the debate begins. Do you have the right to intrude? I always ask the person if it’s all right to photograph them. Always.

When I photographed a harp player in Quebec City, it was with his permission. When I photographed a pavement piano player in Melbourne, it was with his permission. When I photographed a costumed belly dancer, it was with her permission. When I photographed a blind busker, it was with his permission.

So when I saw this street performer in Singapore two years ago, I asked if I could take some shots of him and he nodded his assent.

Just for the record, I wasn't in his face when I shot these images. My normal lens is a Sigma 18-125mm, so I always have plenty of options. Both these images were shot at the maximum focal length, so I wasn't even within touching distance when I photographed him.

If only I’d had an interpreter, I would have asked many questions.

I really wanted to know how old he was and why there was such depth of emotion in his eyes. Yes, he had a funky haircut. Yes, he had a great shirt. But I wanted to know why he sat there in the tropical heat, apparently without any teeth, playing the harmonica as if it were his only outlet for creativity.


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Verse And Worse

Random Wit, Errant Rhyme. Not A Literary Crime

Archie and Veronica
Learnt to play harmonica
And when they mastered the bassoon
They sang at night, under the moon

Rip Van Wrinkle

Street Musician Brings Harmony To Us All

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Sometimes a late reaction is better than no reaction at all. Mid-morning on 15th December, I had a couple of hours to kill in Singapore before catching a connecting flight further east. Rather than spend that time indoors, I caught a train to Orchard Street, an area that used to enchant me when I was in primary school.

The street, as I expected, was a rainbow of living colour, with Christmas decorations as far as the eye could see - so of course I walked briskly from one end to the other, shooting as I went.

I chose to capture not just the vibrant colours, not just the wonderful Yuletide sights. I wanted to capture the broad spectrum of life in the island state - its many subtleties and its many faces, its corporate wealth as well as the everyday scenes of its people. I stopped to shoot colourful garbage bins, I stopped to shoot a Buddhist shrine, I stopped to shoot unusual colours, I stopped to shoot the faces around me, for each one told a story.

In my hurry to cross an arcade, I almost missed seeing this man. I was about to walk past when the sound of a harmonica stopped me in my tracks. He was just playing, lost in his own world, as the shoppers and the tourists and the city workers brushed past him on either side.

I dug my hand into the pocket of my jeans and put some money into his open music case. He nodded and I reckon I must have taken three or four strides past him.

Then I turned back. I was, after all, trying to capture the many faces of Singapore - and he surely was one of them. I asked if I could photograph him and he nodded without missing a note.

Much later, when I had time to think aboard the next leg of my flight, it struck me that I should have taken the time to speak to him. I don’t know his name, I don’t even know how old he was. I didn’t know whether he took his spot on the pavement every day.

He seemed to have no teeth, yet he wore the attire of a young man. His face and arms were wrinkled, yet his wiry physique could have belonged to someone much younger. His neck was lined and weathered, yet his hair would have fitted comfortably on any rock star.

Maybe even the shirt, too.

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Verse And Worse

Random Wit, Errant Rhyme. Not A Literary Crime

Jughead and Betty

Were great with confetti

But Archie and Veronica

Won encores on a harmonica