I walked along the cement, gazing up at the viridescent trees crowding the Cambridge blue sky. The pathway was painted with the orange, red, and yellow of autumn, dried leaves crunching beneath my shoes. I had planned to take pictures to send to my family, but standing there, phone in hand, I began to wonder where I should even begin. Should I capture the grass fields where my other classmates stood, taking pictures of their own, or perhaps the trees and bushes that surrounded either side of the pathway, rows of green leading walkers along, or should I photograph the pathway itself, attempting to capture the beauty of its carpet of leaves best as I could within the lens of a phone?

Next to me, my friend held her video camera, silent as she recorded the view of the scenery, hand moving up and down, left and right as if she was afraid of missing even an inch of the park. Up ahead, two of my other classmates walked, the clicking of their own cameras echoing in the air. The sky was filled with the chirping of birds, hidden and out of sight as they sang from the tops of trees. A heavy breeze passed through the air, sending shivers down my spine. I breathed in the aroma of plants and soil and something else I couldn’t quite pinpoint, my breathe visible with each exhale. A wooden bench came into view up ahead, the green paint peeling off its corners. Legs burning with exhaustion, we sat. Relief hit us almost immediately, the fatigue of our bodies catching up to us. Arriving just an hour or so earlier, we had no time to rest. Our room was also the last to be ready. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back slightly, the chirping of the birds and the scent of pine almost therapeutic.

This is pretty nice.

Shaken awake from my trance a few minutes later, my friend told me the others were leaving . Getting up, I realized I still had yet to take a picture. Majority of our classmates were gone, the only other ones in view a few meters ahead of us. Frantically looking around, I scanned the park for the perfect picture. Groaning with indecision, my eye caught a glance at the scene that lay directly ahead.

Bushes surrounded either side of the path, trees behind them sporting leaves of both orange and yellow that laid scattered about on the ground as if they fell like rain. Slightly ahead of us stood two from our group. Standing straight, I stopped and held my phone up, portrait-style. I stood still for a moment, allowing the camera to focus, before I snapped the scene ahead, the sound of the shutter clashing with the singing of the birds. Looking down at the picture feeling satisfied, I slid my phone back into my pocket, whistling as I began to walk down the pathway again.

I had gotten a picture.