Alone

Crane Beach, MA (June 26, 2005)

I don't know who he was. He arrived at the end of the tempest. He was alone. He took off his shoes and started walking in the direction of the sunset. Slowly. One step after another on the thin line where the water from the ocean mixes with the wet sand after the rain. Sometimes he stopped, looking afar. Maybe he was thinking of somebody, imagining her walking out of the mist, coming back to him, now that the storm was over. She didn't come. He put back his shoes and left, in silence as he arrived. The waves of the ocean erased his footprint, as if they never existed.

I posted this photo, and the short story it inspired, several years ago in the previous incarnation of this blog. At the time I was going quite assiduously to Crane beach, in all seasons and weather. Mayli was traveling a lot even then, so I would often go there to shoot, alone or with a friend that was very much into filmography. Crane beach in summer is usually very crowded, but my frequentations were usually limited at the end of the day, just before the beach closed and the park rangers would throw everybody out. At that time the beach is almost always empty, with just a few solitary souls that like to linger as much as possible in the light of the sunset. Like the guy above, braving the humid ocean air following a rather strong storm that had emptied the beach half an hour before. I have no idea what he was doing there, probably nothing like the story I made up for him. I similarly don't know what the kid in the panorama below was thinking, staring in silence at the water silently flowing through his feet, in advance of the low tide, with the only company of atlantic seagulls.

Crane Beach, MA (June 26, 2005)