Not seeing the light of pou symbols

They are brown symbols, on brown posts, silhouetted against a skyline, against the north sky. It's impossible.

I STARE, and I stare, every morning at the new pou symbols, as I drive into Masterton from Featherston, and they defeat me.

I just can't make them out. Neither can my wife, who got to see them for the first time last week.

She had time to make out the balloon at the top. You'd never know there was lighthouse symbol up there, because a tall narrow symbol doesn't show up against a tall narrow pole.

They are brown symbols, on brown posts, silhouetted against a skyline, against the north sky. It's impossible.

Although I haven't gone around to the north side of Masterton to see the pou there, from the photographs I can tell that the light is providing a much better advantage. The sun, in the northern part of the sky, shines on them.

Every photographer will tell you that light is everything. It's the difference between pornography and erotica. It's the difference between a menacing, shaded silhouette and a friendly visible, welcoming smile.

And right now, it's not a visible, welcoming smile coming into Masterton from the south. It's simply a "huh, what was that?"

Now, I can try and give the benefit of doubt, and the benefit of the seasons, to the pou symbols at the south entrance. If they remain as they are, then we can pretty much write them off as vague protrusions on three tall poles for all of autumn and winter.

But hopefully by the equinox the sun will have moved to a point where, during part of the day, it actually does shine on the symbols.

Come summertime, they might look quite good, something for the tourists to marvel at.

But that's a lot of the year with these symbols not delivering the goods.

There have been a lot of snide jokes about them, including the notion they are an unwelcome presence on Carterton's side of the river, but we have them now and we really need to make them visible.

When the idea for the pou was first mooted, I spoke up for them, saying I rather liked their mysterious pagan-style symbology.

Unfortunately, these are far too mysterious, and it seems obvious now that non-tarnishing metal would have done better.

Perhaps a paint job might help?