A Box of Photographs - Sembilan

Photograph #69

A photograph of a small grey gecko climbing down a bamboo wall, taken from below, as though the photographer is lying in bed. On the back of the photo, it says 'Mini-pote!'

Photograph #70

A photograph of the young man's feet, in the battered brown Nikes. They are dusty; the white swoosh is murky. He is standing on a fallen tree, in a forest. The lighting is soft, sunlight filtered through leaves. The lining of the shoes is blood red. It stands out starkly against a backdrop of dark emerald.

Photograph #71

This is a photograph of the girl. Her hair is tied into a loose ponytail, and she is wearing her tropical-print dress, which blends with the colours of the forest around her. She was sitting down, on a seat made from a log wedged horizontally between two thin trees, but she seems to be getting up, suddenly. Her head is turned to the side with an expression between shock and fear and disgust, and her arms are midway up to her face in order to protect herself from some invisible attacker. Perhaps some kind of enormous jungle wasp.

Photograph #72

Another photograph of the girl, only this time, she is submerged in a dark pool of water, right up to her chest.  Behind her, a wall of black rock, and from above a cascade of water, falling onto her shoulders. She is wearing a black bikini top. Against the dark water, dark rock and dark material her skin is pale, her outstretched arms ivory-white.

Photograph #73

The motorbike, parked. The young man standing beside it as the petrol tank is filled up. Not by a pump. By a tiny girl, no older than 7 years old, who is pouring in petrol from a glass bottle, through a plastic funnel. Lifting the bottle above her head, her tiny brown hands clutching it tightly. He is smiling down at her.

Photograph #74

A photograph of the beach, taken from a wooden hut. Walking across the shot are a herd of brown cattle, in single file, heads hanging low, made heavy by cowbells and thick, curved horns. On the back of the photo it says, 'Cows on the beach, Kuta, Lombok'.