River
Description
I started to take my camera on walks during the months-long lockdown at the beginning of 2021. I returned here, to a small bridge across the river, more than I did to any other place, taking pictures of the river against the moor and a wild patch of forest in the distance. Maybe because it represents a paradox of constancy and change I find deeply comforting: the river was here since the landscape had been shaped by the retreating glaciers of the last ice age. For two millennia, it has been the basis of human settlement at what was to become the small town where I live, and for centuries, the people living at its banks have skillfully used it to cultivate and shape the land and to develop flourishing businesses. And yet the river never stands still, never stops changing, just like the landscape I live in. Often I perceive it only as a backdrop to my daily struggles. Standing on the bridge and walking the moor, I learned to consciously notice the sometimes slow, sometimes sudden change of the light, or the almost imperceptible signs of a new season approaching, about to alter the landscape in its way.