A frame I thought I knew
I walked a great deal in Porto. One evening I passed an intersection and saw a possible photograph: the sun low between the buildings, tram rails drawing through the street and a tram entering the light. I decided to return early on another day and wait for those elements to align.
The next evening was cloudy. On the following day I was too tired to go back. By the time the weather and my timing finally agreed, I had already rehearsed the frame in my head several times.
Waiting for the tram
I arrived before sunset and settled low beside the rails. The light was right, but the tram did not appear. According to the schedule, more than one should have passed. I waited for almost two hours as the shadows lengthened and the window for the photograph grew smaller.
What entered the frame
Then a woman stepped into the light where I had expected the tram to be. The rails still held the composition together, but the photograph changed at once. I raised the camera, focused and made the frame before she moved on.
The photograph I took home
A tram arrived a few minutes later, but by then the picture I had come for no longer mattered. The useful part of the waiting was not that it delivered the scene I had planned. It made me ready to recognise a different one while it was there.