Lilly would sit for a while in one place; then she’d get up and sit somewhere else. She told me she used a 35mm viewfinder camera because it was small, fast, and quiet; and out in the park, I saw what she meant. She held that camera the way you’d hold a drink at a party when you’re busy talking, with a relaxed arm bent at the elbow, always at the same place by her hip. Lilly never looked down, almost as if she’d forgotten the camera was there, but really it was just part of her. She’d taken so many pictures holding it at her hip that she didn’t need to look down to use it anymore, the same way any other person doesn’t need to look at their hand to open a door.

Even watching her, it took me a while to catch on that she was taking pictures. She would look off into the distance like she was daydreaming, and this was how she’d find what she wanted. If her subject was far away, she’d walk herself into range. She’d pre-focused her camera to a focal range of ten feet. She’d internalized this distance over countless hours of practice. Any time, anywhere, she could tell you what was ten feet away from her at any given moment, and she was always right. This helped her take pictures quickly, without anyone noticing. For each picture, she’d position herself at that same ten-foot distance, always keeping the camera in that one spot at her hip.

The way I’m describing it makes it sound slow, but it happened fast. Next, she would turn her head without turning her body, like she was interested in something else. It seemed so innocent, just a young woman in a quiet moment, but that was when she was really looking. She was doing it the way a bird does, with one eye. The real action wasn’t there, though. If you kept watching her face, you’d miss the whole thing, because she never raised her camera to look through the viewfinder. The camera stayed down around where a belt buckle would be, and while she was looking with one eye, she was making small tilts of her wrist, tiny adjustments to compose the shot. That eye and that hand were connected by countless hours of practice, perfect coordination built shot by shot over a small eternity of trial and error. Then the adjustments would stop, and the shutter would click, and if you were looking at her face, you would miss it.