There is a corner on Rua da Graça where the 28 has to slow for the bend, and for about four seconds it is entirely still, tilted, yellow, full of faces. Everyone photographs it. I decided not to.
Eleven attempts, over three months. The first ones are bad in the normal way — proportions, perspective, the tram leaning like it's drunk. The middle ones are bad in a more interesting way: technically fine and completely dead.
Number nine is the one. I stopped drawing the tram and drew the people waiting for it: a man with a cello case, two kids sharing headphones, a woman who was clearly going to be late and had made peace with it. The tram is a yellow smudge behind them.
That's the thing photographs can't do, or won't. They record the tram. A drawing records the four seconds you spent looking, and what you decided mattered.
