If there’s one thing a cold, gray, post-holiday January in New York City demands, it’s an escape to a warmer climate (should you be lucky enough to be able to afford it and make it work).
After close to 20 years in the city, I’d never been to Puerto Rico — even though it’s just a few hours away by plane — and neither had my boyfriend, Alex, so we decided on San Juan for our first vacation together.
On January 8, we took a walk along the Paseo del Morro. It’s a scenic and historic path along the walls of Old San Juan, offering incredible views of the seaside and encounters with the many cats that hide from the sun among the rocks along the water. The path eventually leads up to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, a large fortress constructed between 1539 and 1790. Desperate to find some relief from the near 90-degree heat, we stopped at the top of a grassy hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to let the breeze cool us off.
I’m a photographer by trade, and when I travel, I like to use film, so on this particular trip I had only brought my grandmother’s old Pentax K1000. Using film instead of digital is a way for me to slow down, pay attention to what I’m seeing and take the pressure off the need to shoot a high volume of images.
I had just brought my camera up to my face to shoot a large ship that was passing by when Alex noticed two people standing at the end of the pier far below us.
“Are those people getting engaged? They’re getting engaged!” he said, pointing.
I snapped maybe six or eight images in a row as he recorded the moment on his phone. We looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing this serendipitous occasion, but we were the only ones.
We let the couple take their time, not wanting to impose on such an intimate moment. When the proposal appeared to be done, we made our way over to them, introduced ourselves, and I told them I had captured their engagement with my camera. They were delighted, so I asked for one of their emails…
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