Umbrellas Over the Jetty, Phewa Lake

Pokhara in late May is hot and hazy and the mountains spend most of the day hidden, so you end up looking at smaller things instead. I had walked down to the lakeside in the late afternoon with no particular plan and found this — a jetty running out into Phewa Lake with a roof of umbrellas over it, garlands strung between them, potted plants and little white lamps down both railings.

It is completely over the top and I liked it immediately. Someone had decided that the walk to a boat should be an occasion. The umbrellas were doing what umbrellas do at that hour, holding the light and dropping it onto the boards in patches of yellow and pink, and the boats on either side were sitting still enough to look painted.

I turned the camera upright and stood in the middle of it, because the whole point was the way the thing pulled your eye straight down the walkway and out to the far end. That is a composition you get handed rather than build — I only had to find the right spot and stay out of its way. Ten minutes later a family came down with a picnic bag and the frame belonged to them instead.

Looking the other way, out past the end of the boards, is Phewa Lake itself at dusk.