River time

On my way home recently, I passed a swimming hole that only a few weeks earlier would have had cars lining both sides of the road, some of them precariously parked with two wheels in the ditch. This time there was no one. Just the sound of the river and a well-worn path leading down to the water.

It was overcast, and the green of the water seemed especially vivid. I set up my tripod and started making long exposures. One of the things I like about working this way is that there's nothing to do once the shutter is open but look around. Time tends to disappear. You stand beside the camera and wait for that strange transformation, rushing water rendered into an accumulation of time that our eyes can never quite see.

At one point I noticed a pair of glasses on the ground. I instinctively checked my shirt pocket and was surprised to find mine still there. Someone else had been standing in this exact spot not long before me. Farther along I found a neatly folded shirt with a pair of flip-flops placed beside it. I wondered how someone thoughtful enough to leave their things so carefully could also manage to leave without them.

I worked my way around the falls, moving the tripod from one spot to another. Before long, an hour had passed.