For the month of December, I am participating in Gwen Bell’s The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. The challenge is to respond to a daily writing/photo prompt that reflects on this past year. Oh, and if you want to join me I would love to hear your stories and memories, leave a comment or a link to your site.
12/8: Moment of peace
It is the middle of summer, two days into our Cape Cod stay.
On this August morning the sky looks like gray felt, neutral and in need of a few clumps of cotton, a cut out yellow sun, and a paper seagull or two.
I pick up my manual Pentax camera and walk from the cottage down to the thin strip of sandy beach and out to the rock wall pier.
It’s the same camera that has traveled with me through graduate school, Scotland, Mexico, and on several road trips in the States.
The internal light meter, a horizontal stick that bobs up and down, demands a larger aperture.
I point the camera down on the salted rocks hold small tide pools filled with barnacles and hermit crabs and then out into the felted horizon.
A lone sailboat floats, distant and untouchable.
I walk barefoot along the pocked rock pier, shiny and wet.
Looking through my 50 mm lens, I follow the boat’s coarse and set the focus until the sailboat is a near blur.
Click.
I close the lens tight and refocus, this time the boat is sharp, as if I trace in ink.
Click, click, click.
I shoot two rolls and eight frames.
The sailboat dissolves and I, for an instant, go along for the ride.
Beautiful photo and lovely description–if I close my eyes I can picture being there.
i'm captivated by your words… and the pictures… as always!