One in a Thousand

Like so many photographers I find people to be a burden to photography as often as they are a blessing.  How many times have I stood waiting impatiently for some tourist to finally finish taking their photo, to finally keep walking and stop wandering into the middle of my frame – spots on a lens that refuse to be wiped away.

One of hundreds of almost good pictures I’ve captured over the years.

Greek ruins are particularly trying of ones patience.  Summer crowds mean camera-toting tourists clouding almost every panorama.  Like many of the guests, I spent the day impatiently waiting in line and wishing away the crowds around me.  I could feel my inner peace eroding under the steady stream of human traffic. To quiet my growing indignation I took a moment to pause and consider the human element of the setting.  These ruins, this beauty, had been made by people no different then the ones I was wishing away. It was built for their enjoyment, not as some stuffy museum. Who was I to try and impose my aesthetic on this monument to human achievement?

As if to reward my brief moment of clarity a small child of no more than two came running through columns.  His age, wobbly run and round little face contrasted with the impassive stone columns which had stood unmoving for a thousand of his lifetimes.  Through him I realised the significance of where I stood, and raising my camera just in time, I captured his triumphant run over the ancient stones.  Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone, obscured by a steadfast pillar and the had moment passed, like countless others here, into history.

One brief moment of the millennia witnessed by these stone captured in time.