Stream near the San Pedrillo Ranger Station, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

Stream near the San Pedrillo Ranger Station, Corcovado NP, Costa Rica
Originally uploaded by inger h.

It's so rewarding to be able to bookend an experience. Seven years ago, while visiting Costa Rica for the first time, I had to cross this stream. That was a wetter year; it was much higher then. So high in fact that you needed to jump across from rock to rock to get across. So I was mid-jump, and lost my balance, and fell into the water. The shock of the cold water was nothing to the sudden realization that my camera bag had become a bucket, and was full to the brim with jungle water. Everything inside was ruined. The camera, the lenses, the film. Holding one of the lenses up, you could actually see the water slosh around like inside a kaleidoscope. I was flabbergasted. This was awful. Truly, gut-wrenchingly awful. This was only the 3rd day of the trip. What the hell was I supposed to do without a camera? Taking pictures was the whole reason I'd come there. Hell, at that point, it was the whole reason I did anything. If I didn't have my camera, who was I? Just a tourist?

The other people on the trip were nice, they sort-of understood, but not really. For one thing, they all reassured me that it wasn't that bad, because of course my gear was insured (it wasn't). To them it was an unfortunate accident, hardly a crisis in identity. But that's exactly what it was. I spent most of the afternoon sitting on the lawn at the San Pedrillo ranger station, unknowingly picking up an infestation of chiggers (could I make this stuff up?), staring out at the ocean and feeling sorry for myself.

I borrowed my then-boyfriend's backup Nikon body, and a lens or two.... so I was able to shoot after that, but not very well. I didn't know the camera, and had no feeling for the meter and how it reacted to different light situations. I was also deeply shaken by the experience. An irrational fear of water (only when carrying cameras, natch) and a kind of pit-of-the-stomach dread that something will go wrong has plagued many of my trips since then. Of course things do go wrong, though they have never been as catastrophic as that one fall in the water.

So it was with a deep sense of satisfaction that I snuggled my camera into the small dry bag I'd bought, and took off my shoes and socks, and walked though the same stream that had caused me so much trouble so long ago.

The Cliff House at sunset, Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Ca

The Cliff House at sunset, Ocean Beach, San Francisco, Ca
Originally uploaded by inger h.

I once read somewhere about how a swimming pool or a trampoline in your backyard is considered an "attractive nuisance". Basically, having such a thing there invites trouble, like neighborhood kids sneaking in there and hurting themselves then suing you. So you have to be careful and make sure you have sturdy fences and even studier liability insurance.

Walking around with a camera on a tripod is a similar "attractive nuisance", but instead of inviting trouble it seems to invite a totally different kind of attention. The first time it happened to me I was stunned. A kindly old gentleman in a small English village came over and struck up a conversation. When it came out that I was American, he felt compelled to thank me (me!) for the help American soldiers gave to Britain in the second world war. "We never could have made it without you." It was incredibly touching, all the more so because I was being thanked for the sacrifices made by men and women I'd never met.

Last night, another touching thing happened. There was a large group of people gathered out at Ocean Beach, some of them bikers, some young and some old, just a big, disparate group of folks. They were there for the end of a funeral. I walked past them, then out onto the beach and began shooting the amazing sunset. Long after the sun had sunk below the strands of clouds on the horizon, a young woman walked up to me. She wanted to know if I'd been shooting the Cliff House just then, for the sunset. I had. She wanted to know if there was any way she could get copies of the pictures. This had been her uncle's funeral - here her eyes filled with tears - and the sunset, which seemed threatened by fog all afternoon, had been so wonderful and incredible. I smiled. It was an amazing sunset. I dug around in my bag for a card. She took the card from me and smiled weakly. God Bless you, she said. Then she hugged me.

Now, isn't that better than a trampoline?