Exposure
Sometimes getting the picture perfect is moreby chance than by judgement.
I didn’t look back at Clair and David standing in the driveway. I didn’t want to risk catching the exchanging of amused glances, the raised eyebrows, whatever. I was doing what I was in the habit of doing, avoiding eye contact and looking elsewhere. These roses could do with dead heading I noticed. I could have asked for the secateurs and done it in the time it took James to check all around the car, adjust the mirrors, and give each tyre a knowing tap. There is never anything wrong with the car. Its antique. It’s a Rover. They don’t make them any more, but ours gleamed in the sunlight as if it was fresh from the showroom. James then changed into his driving shoes, and carefully pulled on his driving gloves while I noticed that the weather was clouding up and it looked like rain. I had already changed into my clean shoes of course in obedience to the ritual of our lives.
Those special rain clouds that seem to hang over the M4 between Bridgend and Cardiff were pelting down on us as we drove along. Sixty miles an hour in the central lane. James liked to keep a steady speed. Apparently it’s economical and good for the engine. He never seemed to notice the horns tooting or the lights flashing and I customarily occupied my mind with what was going on around me. How many Tesco lorries there are on the road on a Sunday, a nice herd of jersey cows in that field.
Suddenly we slowed and pulled over into the inside lane. My heart sank, as it always did. He had seen the perfect photo opportunity. A gap in the rain and a watery sun had brought out a huge rainbow that hung over the motorway. We were going to stop. We were going to stop on the hard shoulder of a motorway, lorries rocking us as they passed, while James got out his gadget bag, fitted his camera with the right lens and filter and carefully composed his shot.
A white van about to overtake us on the inside had to brake sharply, and his horn blared. The driver swung out to pass us and the passenger hung out of his window, his plaid shirt flapping in the wind, and made an obscene gesture. They then pulled in tight in front of us so that James had to brake hard himself, and drove sedately in front of us until they grew tired of it. I noticed how filthy the van was. Someone had written, very neatly on the dirt of the back doors “This model also available in white”. It’s an old joke, but it always makes me smile.
By now, to my relief, the rainbow had faded as the sun emerged more clearly, and the rain subsided. So we drove on at a little faster speed in order to make it home in our usual two hours forty minutes.
It was an obsession with James, the photography. The real thing;
Depth of field, f numbers, exposure time; all had to be calculated before the shutter was pressed. We first met in the University Photographic club, but my enthusiasm slipped away under the weight of his expertise. I still have a camera. A tiny digital job that I can slip into my bag. My toy camera he calls it and consigns it to his mental dustbin along with mobile phones, and computers of any kind. I ignored the sarcasm, and we kept our peace, my toy and me, while he still followed his quest for the perfect photograph, and our good old friends stoically endured the endless slide shows, (who else had slides?) and the lengthy explanations of the trouble that a particular shot had cost him, and how he had got the focus perfect and the exposure spot on.
By the time we were approaching the Severn Bridge the rain had completely stopped and the sun burst through full force. I heard the familiar enthusiastic cry as he bulldozed though a few cones marking off the slow lane for maintenance, pulled into the forbidden area, grabbed his camera bag and jumped out. Unbelievably I followed. It was easier than sitting in the car listening to the horns and abuse of other motorists. The force of the wind was appalling, the sheer strength and noise of it. I struggled to the side and clung on to the barrier, but James was already clambering up the scaffolding around the structure. He was right. The sight was amazing. The afternoon sun gleaming gold on the white struts against that extra clear blue sky that comes after rain. Even the dull brown Severn was reflecting blue, and little wavelets ruffled and sparkled in the sunlight.
I couldn’t resist taking out my little camera. It was the picture opportunity of a lifetime. People were now running towards us. Men in yellow coats and hard hats. For a fraction of a second I turned to see what was happening, and in that fraction of a second my husband fell. I heard no cry above the howling and buffeting of the wind, just the sight of a figure falling down from that beautiful bridge into the glittering water and lying face down, still, pushed at random by the little waves.
I remember one man catching hold of me. I remember the cold hardness of his yellow jacket. I remember the men swearing badly. They were as shocked as I I think. And then everything blurred.
A few months have passed now. Our boys have been marvellous, sorting out all our affairs, and have been very kind to me, though I am getting a little tired of being treated like porcelain. The mortgage was paid off but there was no life insurances, and our finances were in a bit of a muddle apparently.
I’m doing rather well though, enjoying working with a publisher who wants to bring out a book of James’s work. It was my photograph though that had caught their eye at first. I was barely aware that I had taken it, but it appeared in all the newspapers, and even the TV news. It is an ‘iconic image’ my agent says. I have an agent now. The figure is caught spread-eagled in mid air between the glowing gold of the sun on the bridge and the dazzle of the sea. Just a snapshot taken with a little digital camera, but the focus is perfect, the exposure spot on.