The stall had everything a photographer thinks they want. Whole crabs on crushed ice, whelks in their shells, three grades of oyster, lemon wedges cut that morning, parsley banked up like hedging. I shot the counter twice, wide, both frames from standing height. Both were mush. Too much of everything and no reason for the eye to stop anywhere. Then I bought one oyster, the vendor handed it over in a paper tray, and the picture was already made.

I came to Chinatown with a camera and no plan, which is usually the only plan that works here. The street in front of me opened like a narrow canyon of brick and signage, the buildings tall enough to squeeze the sky into a pale strip overhead. Fire escapes crisscrossed the façades in black metal diagonals, ladders folded up like punctuation marks, while strings of bare bulbs stretched from side to side, unlit for now but already sketching the night that would come later.