three contrasting local publication you may find in your stocking this Yuletide.

Photographer Ian MacDonald-Smith talks to Chris Gibbons about his new book.

Bermuda Triangles, which will be published this month. Photographs and quotations from Bermuda Triangles published by permission of the author.

Photographer Ian MacDonald-Smith is taking a philosophical look at Bermuda in his second book. Bermuda Triangles, which will be in Bermuda shops this month, offers a variation on the now well-worn Island picturebook theme. In it, MacDonald-Smith matches 207 images not with simple identifications but with quotations from some of the world's great thinkers and writers from Aristotle, Plato and Socrates to H.G.Wells, Dr Martin Luther King and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In fact none of the scenes are actually identified. All the pictures have a common triangular theme from the ubiquitous fitted dinghies and kites to intricate palm frongs and MacDonald-Smith's distinctive work with natural light -mysterious shadows against worn walls and dramatic shafts of sunlight piercing across dark rooms.

MacDonald-Smith has combined the triangles and quotations to illustrate the Six Cycles of Life, according to the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras: Birth, Growth, Decay, Death, Absorbtion and Metamorphosis. Again, some are more obvious than others - ruins to illustrate decay, for example - but much of the book is abstract and deals, in MacDonald-Smith's words, "with everything from birth control to war''.

"The Ancient Greeks were not only great philosophers but great mathematicians and they applied that logic to abstract thoughts,'' he points out. The geometry of triangles, he adds, thus dovetails perfectly with the philosophical theme of the book. MacDonald-Smith accepts that some may label Triangles as pretty but pretentious but is unrepentant about its value as a personal and thought-provoking work.

"I do think along philosophical lines,'' he explains. "The quotes are poignant and when put in sequence, it is a journey. When readershave rubbed shoulders with Einstein, Plato and Aristotle, I think they will have learned a lot. I've learned an incredible amount by just going through the quotations.'' MacDonald Smith says he spent five months researching the quotations and 13 months editing from 500 images drawn from seven years of work.

"I've tried to introduce people in a simple way to some very intense people.

What they've said is very complex but they've been able to boil it down to something very simple. These quotes are not particular to Bermuda. They also apply to the rest of the world.'' He adds: "I like learning and I've learned a lot doing this book and I like to share things. I'm lucky that I'm able to have the time to look at things in a little bitmore detail than some people. And it's only through the support of the Island that I'm able to do that.'' But with the likes of Scott Stallard working on his fourth photo book, one wonders how much more Bermuda's coffee tables can stand.

MacDonald-Smith, who sold "about 5,000'' copies of his first book, A Scape To Bermuda (published in 1991), admits he is taking a financial and creative risk with Triangles. As with Scape, he is publishing the book himself and printed in Canada. mb because it's not something that is immediately marketable to Bermudians. The book is not full of stunning landscapes, it is more abstract and people do tend to be more conservative in Bermuda.

"I've designed the book for an international market because the local market cannot sustain this level of publishing.'' But he adds: "I think it's a good thing that there are a lot of books being produced. It's good for the public to have a choice and it's also making the public more discerning.'' His other motive for self-publishing, he says, is simply editorial control.

"With the amount of time and work I put into a project like this, I'm not prepared to give it to a publisher who is going to do his or her thing to it,'' says MacDonald-Smith, a self-confessed perfectionist. "It would be undermining what I see to be a personal vision - especially the correlation between the images and the quotations. I put as much intergrity and quality into it as I can. There is that egotistical thing and when someone wants to cut something, it does add to your stress level!'' The book, he believes, works on several levels. "I see a lot of things happening on this Island that I don't like,'' says MacDonald-Smith, a passionate environmentalist. "This book isn't going to change that but maybe it will make people stop and think. On the other hand if they just want to flick through and look at the pictures or count the triangles, that's fine too.'' Bermuda Triangles, 208 pages, 340mm x 220mm will be published by Ian MacDonald-Smith this month at $49.95 or $200 in a leatherbound limited edition.

"Don't wait for the Last Judgment to take place every day.'' -- Albert Camus.

NOVEMBER 1993 RG MAGAZINE