I had wandered down several streets, veering away from the river and into the old part of town. After that first serendipitous image of the man on the bridge, I hadn’t seen anything new that excited me.
Then I rounded a corner and saw, down ahead of me, where the street dead-ended at a church. A beautiful stone facade wrapped around the entry, with its two heavy wooden doors beneath a gentle point at the top of the arch. Another lamppost, set on the brick-covered ground and behind the stone stanchions with their gracefully draped chain, created a counterpoint on the left side of the frame. All this was juxtaposed against the minimal texture of the white facade of the structure itself.
Just as I grabbed the camera to frame the scene, two men appeared from the right, moving diagonally from right to left. I clicked, but I knew it wasn’t the best shot I could hope for.
Then, a white-haired lady entered the scene from the right, walking straight to left, immediately in front of the church and behind the chain. As I pressed the shutter for the first frame, she looked to her left, fixated on something beyond me. She was perfectly positioned in the composition. I took two more frames, but she was now behind the stone stanchion, too far left in the frame. Three frames of her—that’s all I managed. After a full roll later, shooting verticals that didn’t quite work, I left.
I felt confident that the first frame of her would be the best. I was right. It was indeed.
