Lovers' bridge

It was Sunday evening. The weather was gentle and the sky was gradually turning dark. I was lying in bed, awakened from a half-conscious nap when it suddenly came to my mind that perhaps it was a good time now to go to the jetty and snap a picture. It was something I had long wanted to do, after having seen a lovely shot of some sort of a jetty at a blog. The place was a European country, and the camera that captured the moving scenery is no doubt a DSLR. Still, when I saw that photo, I thought of the mini jetty at the lake near my home and made a mental note to take a picture of it someday.

That day found itself on this dreamy Sunday afternoon, the first restful weekend that I managed to enjoy in many weeks. The jetty was some 2km plus away from home. A walk there would have been too much an effort just to take a picture, though the more important consideration was the disappearing day: it would be useless if I reached the place in darkness.

I considered cycling, which was my plan anyway when I conceived this silly plan. But I felt lazy to bring my bike down, and I was not keen to cycle such a short distance only to have a photograph taken. In the end, almost counter-intuitively, I surprised myself by deciding to jog there, camera in hand no less. I was motivated by the prospect of a work-out, convinced that this would help keep up the resurrected mini-exercise tempo that was mustered over the last two weeks during reservist.

Then I finally got out of the house, ran a pretty fast pace (or so I thought) and arrived at the far end of the lake where the small jetty stood. A clear blue twilight sky would have served as an excellent backdrop, but the weather had been cloudy and rainy, so I had to live with whatever Heaven bestowed.

Then came the second stumbling block: a young couple was resolutely implanted on the jetty, whispering sweet-nothings to each other. Even when I made a pretence to shoot the jetty with them in the view of the camera lens, they were oblivious and remained snugly rooted to the same spot. So I had to live with that too, comforted though by the thought that there could have been more people on the jetty. This was a public park after all. It was a good thing, however, that the jetty is located at the furthest end of the lake: only runners and those taking a long stroll are likely to reach this stretch.

I assumed my photographer role, frustrated by my own awareness that there was no way I could replicate the lovely shot that I saw using my point and shoot camera. The short jetty also seemed decidedly less inspiring, especially with the ugly grill barrier fencing it. I would have been greatly discouraged if I had been foolish enough to expect anything more than what was before my eyes and what my modest equipment could produce. In a way thus, I had already moderated my hopes. For the same reason too, it was important for me to come at an opportune time when the weather and lighting is not so harsh.

Perhaps it's just as well that the couple remained grounded to their spot throughout the nearly half hour that I was there probing innocuously with my camera. They became a peripheral subject, a point of focus on which the anticipated shot has come to rely to anchor the photo.

After a few more shots, I finally removed myself from the scene when a few men (chinese nationals foreign workers) began to surround me. They were probably intrigued by my focused shooting of the lake, curious to know what discovery I had made. (Note: I must have been squatting by the lake for quite some time, focusing and pointing my camera into the lake at awkward angles.) I turned around, coolly keeping my camera away before resuming my jog. By then, light has already given way to darkness. Sunday was entering its final hours.