March 15, 1896 [Blackfriars Bridge]

There's no way to tell the weather on Blackfriars Bridge—is it the quality of the photography or just more English grey? The background fades into mist—but it's not important. What matters is the foreground: It's all horses and people on foot, as they've been for centuries, clear as day—for now. The camera is the only thing in the scene that seems modern, that will have any real chance of survival, now that the carriages and pedestrians can be scooped up and poured across the Atlantic so easily.

And the camera isn't really "there"; it watches, certainly, but it stands away from the bridge. The pedestrians notice it—one fellow looks over his shoulder. I imagine he felt it creeping up on him, ready to knock off his hat and pull the feathers from the ladies', toss the horses into the Thames and let the carts and carriages wander briefly and stop, waiting for the day—soon—when other machines will clamber onto the bridge and gather them and the hat-less gentlemen and the flustered ladies and move them far, the way the bridge has made its way over here where the weather is also grey and the light flickers against my face.