It must have been the focus ring. It was misaligned. Happened when Drew had dropped the bag getting off the plane. Shit.

Yeah. That was it. It was the only explanation.

Drew fiddled with the controls, deleted the picture, hell- deleted the last five, ten.

Start again. He told himself. Again.

He knew how important it would be for him to nail the assignment. Candids of the common people. What a trite byline.

He snapped another. This one was in focus! Huzzah!

But… it was still off. The shutter speed must have been off. The passerby looked like a living streak, stretching the length of the frame and then some.

Ugh. Delete.

He fussed with the shutter speed and, preemptively, adjusted the f. Stop, the iso and once more spun the focus ring back and forth, close and far and in between.

Whatever the problem was, he had to have gotten it. Now he just had to wait for the right someone to come along.

And wait.

And wait some more.

He did look up just in time to see the end of a proposal, perfect and pristine, any photogs dream on a tourists bridge. And also over.

He swore under his breath. He raised his camera, clicked the button with an indifferent tap.

The snapshot on the lcd screen smiled back; a perfect candid of no one in particular and yet perfectly captured the crowd as a unit.

Some coming, some going. Some blurs, others crisply in his window of critical focus.

That was it. Or a window to it.

He smiled, remembering why he did this job. Then he took another.