The light at the end of the lens

It was mid afternoon, the cobblestones were reflecting the blazing sun like thousands of convex mirrors, and I was thinking about toboggans.

The street had risen swiftly from a low point some twenty meters behind me, a pathway bordered with waist height walls, topped off with iron rails, and constructed with the perfect sledging contour. The false steps, positioned every half metre, rounded with wear, wouldn’t pose a hazard, I mused, as the winter snows would surely fill in the gaps, producing a clear and unblemished run from the apex of the hill right down to the point where the slippery descent flattened out before beginning to rise again..

One last step, I thought to myself, as the world around me shifted into a kind of focus which only I know. For the twentieth time since the lowermost rung I bent my leg, leaning forward to counteract the destabilising effect of my foot losing purchase and slipping back.. I lurched for the right handrail, the only section seemingly unused by fellow sightseers, straightened my body and looked down. Far below a channel of water reflected the light blue of the sky, dark walls constraining its movement to left and right. Higher up two domes rose, forming a greyish background to frame the view.

I clutched at the camera bag which I had slung over my head and a shoulder before leaving to protect its precious cargo from the thieves I imagined stalking the crowds, and peered back the way I had come. Mark wasn’t yet in view, but this didn’t necessarily mean very much. I would in any case hear him, his wooden sticks striking against the roadway as he climbed towards me.

I returned to the task in hand and retrieved my camera. It had been in my possession only a couple of weeks so far, but such was my determination to make full use of its feature set, that I had used it extensively in the days leading up to our trip and already knew its every button and dial by instinct. I also knew however, that with the sun behind me, and my vision bleached to such a degree that the slightest shadow felt like the coming of night, I would be lucky to see anything through its viewfinder. Turning it on and lifting the lens barrel to the horizontal I composed my shot. The line between the distant hills, closer foliage and town roofs, and the sky, provided a horizon about which I could orient my real world view, but I had to stop myself from imagining its existence in the pixels of the tiny screen.

“Focus on the picture,” I told myself. “Concentrate on what you can see, not what you can’t.”

Holding the viewfinder tightly against my right eye, blocking all other light from entering, whilst gripping the camera with both hands, I fought to identify a shape or difference in light which would give me some assurance that the image I was about to record would approximate the one I wanted to create. Blankness stared back at me.

I rotated the zoom control and scanned from left to right, focusing on the nothingness before me. My usual sound clues, from people talking, bells ringing, motors droning on water borne craft, could not help me here, and I couldn’t find the slightest clue to the content of the frame.

Amongst the hubbub about me on the bridge I began to recognise a rhythmical tap and slide which heralded the arrival of my friend and travelling companion. This was by no means our first trip together, though it probably was one of the more challenging. Aside from contending with the usual assortment of mobility obstacles thrown between us and the things we wanted to do, a different attitude seemed to abound as to the degree of independence which could be afforded to disabled people wishing to live their lives as they please. Our first hotel, selected carefully after close analysis of TripAdvisor reviews had moved us to a different establishment upon learning about us over the phone from our taxi driver, and now here in Mostar, the second venue of our short break, the reception staff appeared less than happy as Mark made his way down their ancient Ottoman staircase.

I squinted into the viewfinder, peering left then right, up and down, patiently seeking out that speck of light, a difference in contrast, that would guide me in taking that first shot. Constantly I fought against imaginary lines, hills conjured into view by my rather creative mind, hazy buildings painted against a dark grey sky, only to dissolve or evolve with the passage of time. Lines slid and swirled, patterns of light and dark speckled my view, my mind was playing tricks and the prospect of a well framed photograph were waning.

But, wait a moment. I held my breath and stared intently. A speck of whiteness shone back, and then flickered and died. I must have moved my gaze, I thought, and adjusted it by fractions, trying not to overcompensate and so lose it completely. And there it was again, a glowing patch of white, growing in size, gaining form, building in intensity. I gambled with my new found target and moved my face against the camera body so as to use my outer peripheral vision. It wouldn’t help me on detail, but it might confirm the scale of the object I had found.

And there it was, exactly where it ought to be, just where I had left it when looking away, a permanent structure fixed not only in space and time but more importantly, for my purposes at least, in the well defined rectangle of the viewfinder. I gripped hard with my right hand and anchored myself against the balustrade. The elastic loop of my white cane, which I had earlier slipped over my left wrist to free up my hand began to drift, causing the tip of the stick to protrude ever further into the course of oncoming pedestrians behind me. If they hadn’t noticed the apparently blind photographer before, I thought, they were bound to now. But all that mattered was the picture.

I returned the glowing white image to my central vision and concentrated hard on framing it. Gently turning the zoom control left and right I watched it swell so so that it was everything and the background was gone, before shrinking back to a distant speck, hardly discernible amongst the real and imagined greys.

“Can you take my picture? “ I heard a voice behind me.

Mark had clearly made it to the top, an ascent notable not so much for its vertical distance, but for the lack of solid foot holds and the flows of people, this way and that, creating an ever changing obstacle course to be addressed. Mark has one of the strongest “can do” attitudes of anybody I know, including those who are not disabled, and his stamina, persistence and determination has played a significant role in encouraging me in furthering my own independence where circumstances made this challenging. Our skills and abilities complement each other when travelling, even if his infinite optimism can sometimes rub against my own penchant for gloomy realism.

“In a minute. “ I called back, all too aware that this was a favourite refrain of mine and that Mark wasn’t the only person who finds themselves waiting to fit in with my plans.

I zoomed in hard on my target and traced its outer boundaries. When filling the frame the object was too large for my restricted central vision, and I moved my gaze across it to detect an overall form or shape. It was round, I could tell, or rather semi circular, and it appeared to hover at a level which appeared deliberately designed to be viewed from this vantage. I moved the end of the camera up and noted a slender tower or chimney rising heavenward. A minaret?

Pulling back the zoom once more, holding the brilliant white mosque in the center of the frame I imagined the river and bill hills, the green leaves and terra-cotta rooftops which I couldn’t see, but which would provide context and interest, I held my breath and released the shutter.

Freeing my eye from the viewfinder’s pressure, relaxing my taut limbs and allowing the camera to rest on the strap around my neck. The world of light and colour, and of distinguishable shapes, returned but without the detail that I had seen. The dome like hills were there, the blue river still swept through its rocky gorge, but the shining white mosque, which must sit between the two had been enveloped once more in the complexities of my vision. Mark was next to me, catching his breath from the climb and the heat, snapping shots with his instamatic.

“There aren’t words “ I ventured.

Indeed, there weren’t, he agreed as I edged my way across the crest of Stari Most, my feet slithering on stone’s foot polished and sun baked to record the fact that we were there. Guided by voice and a mind’s eye sense of the intended result I lined up the barrel, compressed the unseen background behind my friend, and shot.