Cricket Ground — Test Match, 2001 6

Two friends walking along the boundary rope at the end of day's play at the test cricket ground — a young person with short dark hair and warm brown skin in white linen with the Panama hat, and a broad-shouldered South Asian man with a neat side part wearing a white cricket sweater vest over a collared shirt carrying the thermos and cake tin — both looking back at the camera with relaxed smiles. The ground behind them is emptying — the pitch covers being dragged on, the stumps drawn, the sight screen wheeled to the side. The Victorian pavilion with clock tower catches the late afternoon light, which has broken through the overcast into a golden haze. The green oval glows emerald. The white picket fence runs alongside them. Other spectators filtering out, folding up blankets, packing hampers. The Fuji film's slightly cool tones warming in the late light. Soft grain, the boundary rope leading the eye through the frame. A day well spent. Natural skin texture with subtle pores and micro-imperfections, organic asymmetry in features.