Hidden Structure

The spring runoff on the Boise River had finally receded. I went to the river.

Downed cottonwoods. Debris. Lines of runoff in the sand.

I had an idea for a picture. But it didn’t just come to me.

It came in 1991, when I was eighteen, with the movie Grand Canyon. A film about strangers living independent lives, until the final scene puts them at the rim of the canyon.

That idea tumbled around in my mind for more than twenty-five years before I stood with my camera on the riverbank.