Still

A popular trope in photography is to use a long exposure to render moving water smooth. I usually avoid it. But here I couldn’t resist. The evening I made this photograph I was in Eagle, Idaho on the river searching for a composition when this swaying, satisfying S curve in the river said hello. There was no breeze, not a whisper. Still. 

I set the camera to a full one second exposure. Knowing the water, rushing by, would blur and turn into a grey silk sheet.

In that one second I thought of my Grandpa. Confined to his chair the eight years before he passed. He had fallen in the hospital, broke his hip. He sat looking out their picture window to Idaho Falls. The seasons passing before him. I was twenty when he took to his recliner. I visited a few times a year. I was busy going to school, working, getting married, and starting a business. 

He sat in his chair.