Chapter 16
Rhys allowed himself a moment to peer at the image on his viewfinder, that patina of Ginny he’d preserved in pixels. It showed both too much and nowhere near enough, hinting at her colourful body language but inadequate to convey the person she was.
Every damn photo he took was inadequate, especially since the accident. He could manage the dramatic light and shadow of an epic landscape shot, or deftly freeze time to show animal life at its truest, but people? He’d struggled before and it was hopeless now.
He couldn’t even tolerably capture Ginny and she sparkled more than most.
Switching off the camera, he tried to turn off the rest of his feelings at the same time, especially the uncomfortable brush of her sadness over him when she’d told him about her father’s remarriage.
She should be treasured, but her father had unwittingly let her down, although she probably wouldn’t admit that was what he’d done. She had too much empathy for that.
On a whim, he fetched his Minolta out of the car. He always saw things differently through the old lens and the more time he spent with Ginny, the more he wanted to make these wedding photos special – not that he had any idea how.
They wandered along the road, past two sturdy farmhouses decorated with ornate Gothic script and under an archway of trees.
Golden apples hung heavily on one and he could imagine taking a few shots with the wedding party here as well.
But as they walked a little farther, the valley opened out before them, the village tucked in below rugged, forested ravines in green and gold, and the stone towers of the Geisler peaks rising in the background.
Even at this distance, the fingers of Dolomite stone, tumbling to rubble, inspired awe.
He’d love to go up there, hang from a rope and experiment with the verticals and perspective he only ever found on a rock face.
The 35 mm lens was already attached, so he lifted his camera to his eye and searched for the framing. The Minolta was not a point-and-shoot device. There were many steps to follow before he ever pressed that button, and often he never pressed it at all.
‘What kind of camera is that?’ Ginny asked.
‘It’s older than you are,’ he commented absently.
Stepping up into the meadow for a little more perspective, he adjusted the exposure settings and looked through the viewfinder again.
The colour of the lush grass dominated the image.
It looked silver to him but that might have just been his eyes, his brain.
Glancing at Ginny, he held out the camera to her. ‘Take a look.’
She straightened as she made her way up to him, accepting the device carefully as though handing it over were an act of trust she was determined to earn. He didn’t want to tell her the camera was basically worthless in monetary terms.
Squeezing one eye shut, she pressed her face to the plastic housing. ‘It’s so beautiful.’ It was probably instinct, but her finger rested on the shutter release.
‘Don’t take an actual photo,’ he warned.
‘Uh, okay.’
‘What colour is the grass?’ he asked.
‘Is that a trick question?’
‘No,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’m genuinely not sure.’
She lowered the camera immediately. Her features were the usual surprising muddle in his brain, but he was getting used to feeling the intensity of her gaze. She empathised so fiercely, he wondered if it might be dangerous – for them both. ‘Does it matter what colour the grass is?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘But I’d like to know what other people see.’
‘Okay,’ she said, lifting the camera again. ‘Um, it’s bright green, neon green. It makes me think of the blades of sugar grass in Willy Wonka’s factory.’
He loved that answer. It was less of a meaningful description and more of a glimpse into her brain. He nodded as she handed back the camera.
‘You see something different?’
‘It’s not really the colour, it’s the quality of it. If I fiddle with the exposure, you might understand what I mean.’
‘Go on, then. I’d like to see.’
He grinned at her. ‘How long have you got? I still have four shots before the film is done. Then I’ll have to develop it.’
‘That’s a film camera?’
‘I know you’re young, but I don’t think they had digital cameras when you were born, right? Don’t worry, I have two more cameras for the wedding, including a brand-new Sony that will take better action shots than I managed at the last wedding. This old camera is… an experiment.’
‘Does it take better pictures?’
Lifting the camera to his eye once more, he turned the manual focus on the lens, watching the view of the village blur and then sharpen, the summits leaping out as he experimented with depth of field.
‘There’s no one answer to that,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know what these pictures are going to be like. I haven’t printed them yet.’
‘It’s your first time using the camera?’
‘That’s not what I meant. You can’t control everything the same way with film. I have a good idea of the aperture I want and I could check my instincts using a light meter if I needed to, but I like the unpredictability.’
‘It really is capturing a moment.’ Her voice was wistful.
Glancing beside him, he commented, ‘An imperfect moment. Many of the shots won’t work out. Maybe it’s a bit like a wedding.’
Her lips turned up, just slightly. The ring in the bottom one shifted with every subtle expression. ‘Because you prefer to focus on the weddings that don’t work out, rather than the many that do?’
‘Something like that.’
‘It’s still worth capturing that moment, right?’
‘Of course.’
‘That is how I feel about weddings,’ she said, glancing up at him. ‘And I’d like to think that every moment is perfect in its way. At least, it’s the moment we’ve got – the moment we’re supposed to have, I hope.’
The words burrowed into him. ‘That’s either a very na?ve or a very stubborn thought.’
‘I won’t ask you which you think it is, in my case.’
Stubborn. She was definitely stubborn. But she was na?ve as well, imagining that the future would never tarnish her ‘perfect’ moments.
‘Here, capture your moment.’ He held the camera out to her. ‘Take it. Film is expensive, but I can give you a single frame.’
‘A single frame,’ she repeated, taking the housing gingerly and nursing it like a baby. ‘Pressure’s on.’
‘That’s the biggest difference with a film camera: how you feel about it. How many photos do you have on your phone?’
‘Only about fifty thousand.’
‘Fifty… Only!’
‘Surely you can’t be surprised by that. How many do you have?’
‘On my phone? No idea, but it’s not that many. I have several hard drives of work, but my personal stuff… isn’t much. But you’ve made my point. There are thirty-six negatives in this roll. That’s all.’
‘But you have another roll, right?’
‘I don’t have fifty thousand negatives. That would be over ten thousand pounds’ worth of film, not to mention the costs of developing.’
‘You’re making me really appreciate my phone.’
‘Appreciate the mountains instead – and that you’re here right now to see them.’
The breeze blew a strand of hair onto her cheek as she stared in front of her. ‘You’re right, the way you shoot is different with film. I’m aware I can’t live this moment over again. The single photo will be a poor memory of this place. What do I need to do?’ She peered through the viewfinder.
‘I’ve already set the aperture, which is the part you won’t be able to see, so very gently turn the lens to adjust the focal length. With a landscape shot, you generally want as much in sharp focus as you can get.’
She hunched forward, squinting through the viewfinder and holding the camera like a cheeseburger.
‘Here,’ he muttered.
Taking her left wrist, he moved her hand until it supported the weight of the device from underneath, curling her fingers around the lens.
With one hand at her back to hold her still, he positioned the camera so it was propped against her forehead, brushing aside that strand of hair before he thought better of it.
His brain fogged with Ginny this close, with her ideals and penetrating questions – and smooth hair that smelled of vanilla and coconut with something floral on her skin. The three earrings in her left lobe were near enough that he was breathing on them.
‘Is that…? Is it right now?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, that’s good. This camera doesn’t have image stabilisation, so you need to hold it very still. Imagine your arms and forehead are like a tripod and hold it like that.’
‘Right, okay.’ He wasn’t sure what that tone meant, but she took a deep breath. Perhaps he shouldn’t have made so many jokes about the cost of film. ‘I think I’m ready.’
‘Go on, then.’
The little snick of the shutter was a shock in the silence.
She lowered the camera and took in the view once more. ‘There,’ she said with a shrug. ‘That was the moment.’
‘I’ll give you a copy when I print it.’
She smiled, as widely as he’d seen that day.
He wasn’t sure if she was conventionally pretty, although he suspected so, but she was certainly beautiful.
Looking at her, he wanted to try out a close-up.
He could blur everything except that bottom lip.
Perhaps it would be a series, each with one feature in focus.
He’d felt like an amateur with a point-and-shoot at the wedding in the snow, framing the shots and hoping the subject would do the rest. But Ginny… Her portrait would be much more than the lines and shadows of a face. How could he communicate the way she moved, the tone of her voice, in a photo?
The call of a bird dragged his gaze from the curve of her neck and he looked up to see a bird of prey, a bearded vulture, he guessed, sweeping through the warm air rising to dissipate up high.
Rhys was glad of the distraction. He’d been a second away from imagining her posing for him, a prospect that made him uncomfortable, reluctantly remembering the folder of photos he’d kept of Annie, even though he couldn’t make sense of her face any more.
Ginny was too bright and too young and he needed to get her out of his head.
‘Up there.’ He gestured at the bird. ‘Take a shot.’
‘But what about the… focal length and all that?’
‘Forget about that for now. Look at him spreading his wings. The settings aren’t ideal, but the moment might be, and that’s what photography is all about.’
She was grinning beneath the camera body.
‘So some moments are perfect after all?’ she teased.
With a final adjustment to the lens, she pressed the shutter release.
Bringing the camera down from her eye, she turned it over in her hands, inspecting the housing.
‘It’s really strange that I can’t see the picture yet. ’
‘Delayed gratification is a lesson young people need to learn.’
She poked him with her elbow and handed back the camera, fetching her phone from her pocket. Swiping at the screen, she held it up and snapped another photo.
‘Fifty thousand and one,’ she said lightly.
Rhys couldn’t resist. He raised the Minolta and filled the frame with her face. He ignored what he’d learned at college about framing close-ups. This shot wasn’t for an audience anyway. She looked up just as he pressed the button.
‘Thirty-five,’ he commented.
She surprised him by holding out her hand. ‘Can I have one more shot?’
He gave her the camera without hesitating. ‘Why?’
When she lifted it to her eye and pointed it straight at him, he froze. What would she see through the viewfinder? Would his fascination for her be obvious? Or perhaps the shadows that were the only thing he could identify in his own face.
Briefly adjusting the focus, she snapped a shot quickly. ‘I bet you don’t have many photos of yourself.’
It haunted him enough when he looked in the mirror.
‘There you go, thirty-six,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘You can develop that film now.’