The Legend of a Failed Photograph
In Genichesk, there is a staircase down which hundreds of people descend to the sea every day. In the summer, the air smells of heated stone and salty water, children race toward the beach, and vacationers stop near the colonnade to take photos against the horizon. Over the years, the staircase has changed. Light-colored columns have appeared, the walls have been adorned with murals, and the familiar cityscapes have gradually given way to new ones. But in old family albums, photographs still exist where it looks completely different. One such photograph made a young man spend almost an entire day on the staircase. He arrived in Genichesk for only a few hours, planning just to swim and take one picture for his grandmother. By evening, his phone held over a hundred photos—and almost all of them were failures.
A few days before the trip, his grandmother invited her grandson to her home. Lying before her was an old family album with a worn cover. She turned the pages for a long time until she found the right one and carefully removed a small photograph with yellowed edges.
The picture showed a young woman in a light, polka-dotted dress. The wind had tousled her hair, and she was laughing, shielding her eyes from the sun. Behind her were stone steps, a low wall, and the sea. The photograph wasn’t exactly perfect. The horizon was slightly tilted, and the girl’s face was somewhat blurred.
«Is that you?» the grandson asked, surprised. «Who else could it be?»
He looked closer. The young woman genuinely resembled his grandmother, although it was difficult to imagine her with that hairstyle. Faint ink on the back of the photo read: «Genichesk. Our first vacation.» The grandmother paused her gaze on the photograph for a moment.
«You are going there soon, aren’t you? Find those steps and take me a picture of what it looks like now.»
The grandson confidently promised to take a photo from the same spot. He even suggested combining the old and new pictures so that the changes in the city would be visible. His grandmother smiled.
«Give it a try.»
He didn’t notice the curiosity with which she said the word.
He arrived in Genichesk on a hot morning. The sun was high, the air above the road shimmered with heat, and more and more people carrying towels and beach bags were seen approaching.
He spotted the staircase from a distance. Wide steps descended to the sea. At the top rose a semicircular colonnade with four light-colored columns; railings stretched along the stairs, and the side wall was adorned with a large mural featuring a ship, waves, and birds.
The young man took out an old photograph and compared the images. The photograph of his grandmother showed neither the colonnade nor the sea mural. The staircase looked much simpler, and the wall was completely bare.
He raised his phone, chose an angle, and prepared to take a picture. But as soon as he pressed the screen, a woman with a large beach bag stopped in front of him. Children rushed past next—one of them dragging an inflatable dolphin. When they disappeared, a man appeared in the middle of the stairs, deciding to adjust his sandals.
The young man waited patiently, then tried again. He descended further, climbed back up, moved to the wall, and crouched down, attempting to recreate the old composition.
It finally came together. Light columns, neat steps, and a sea on the horizon appeared on the screen. The sun beautifully illuminated the architecture, and passersby barely disrupted the frame.
But as soon as he compared the shots, the joy vanished. In the new photo, the staircase looked stately and almost deserted. In the old one, it was simple and slightly careless. Yet, the girl in the light dress somehow drew the eye more strongly than the entire new colonnade.
He looked at his grandmother again. She wasn’t posing. She was laughing, tilting her head slightly toward the photographer, as if he had just said something incredibly funny.
What had happened in that moment?
By noon, the young man began to regret his promise. He could have easily sent his grandmother an ordinary photograph and gone swimming, but now he was determined to achieve a resemblance.
Searching for the right angle, he approached the side wall of the staircase and looked closely at the mural for the first time. An ancient ship sailed among the sea waves. Birds circled above it, and the bow was adorned with an unusual animal head featuring massive horns.The elderly man standing nearby noticed his interest and explained that it was a taur—an ancient wild bull. A wooden embellishment resembling this on the ship’s bow was once discovered in the Tonk Strait. The find is now kept in the local history museum of Henichesk. The man remembered how the staircase used to look. He recounted that in 2017, the upper section was decorated with a semi-rotunda featuring four Ionic columns, and a year later, local artist Liliya Koneva created the sea mural on the wall. The work took only seven days. The artist had long dreamed of creating something meaningful for her hometown. Her idea was supported by the city council, entrepreneur Sergei Minkach helped procure the materials, and her husband Alexey prepared the scaffolding.Now, the young man viewed the wall differently. He imagined how, day by day, the ship, the waves, and the birds had appeared here, and how passersby would stop to admire the artist’s work.He took several photographs of the mural. This time, he didn’t wait for people to leave the frame. They were going down to the sea, pausing near the painting, taking pictures of each other.The staircase continued its ordinary life. And somewhere among these people, his grandmother once stood.
Relieved from the heat, the young man bought a bottle of water and sat on the steps in the shade. His phone held over a hundred photos. He scrolled through them one by one, but none resembled the old card. He picked it up again. There was a small scratch on the edge, his grandmother’s hair was wind-tousled, and her dress was slightly askew. It seemed the photographer hadn’t even managed to properly focus the camera. But what interested him most was the laugh. He remembered how his grandmother smiled when she handed him the photograph. She had said, «Try this, ” as if she knew something he didn’t.
The young man took out his phone and called her.
„Well, did you find the staircase?“
He told her about the colonnade, the frescoes, and the unusual ship. His grandmother was surprised, she asked questions, trying to imagine what the familiar place looked like now.
„Did you take a picture?“ she finally asked.
„Yes. Lots of them. But none look like you.“
„Why do you want them to look like me?“
He was confused, then looked back at the old picture.
„Grandma, why are you laughing in there?“
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Then, his grandmother chuckled softly.
„Oh, it’s a whole story…“
That vacation was their first trip to the seaside together. Grandfather bought a camera shortly before they left and, from day one, decided to capture absolutely everything—the train station, the suitcases, the streets, the boats, and even the breakfast plates. Grandmother patiently posed at first, but soon tired of the endless requests to stop, turn, or look into the lens.
That day, they were heading to the beach. The sun was blazing, the sea was visible beyond the steps, and grandfather suddenly decided that this spot would yield a wonderful photograph. He asked her to stand on the steps. The first attempt was unsuccessful because Grandmother stood too far away. On the second try, the sun flashed in the lens. On the third, grandfather accidentally covered part of the frame with his finger.
Grandmother was already about to walk down to the sea when he asked for one last chance. Raising the camera, grandfather slowly backed up, trying to fit the woman entirely within the frame.
Behind him lay a beach bag. Grandma noticed it first but didn’t have time to warn him. Grandpa took another step, stepped on the bag, and almost lost his balance. He flailed his arms awkwardly, pressed the camera against his chest, and managed to press the shutter button.
Grandma burst out laughing. It was at that exact moment the shutter clicked. When the film was developed, the photo was blurry, the dress was cropped, and the young woman was standing completely differently from what the photographer had envisioned.
But Grandma liked this shot more than any of the others. For many years afterward, Grandpa insisted that he had deliberately tried to capture her natural smile. She would always argue that he hadn’t caught any smile—that he had simply almost fallen down the stairs. And they would both start laughing.
When Grandma finished her story, the young man was silent for a while. He looked at the photograph again. Now, beyond the subject, it seemed as if another person had appeared—a young grandpa with a camera, desperately trying to take a beautiful picture while almost falling onto his own bag.
His grandson remembered him very differently—old, calm, sometimes a bit grumpy. It was hard to imagine that he, too, used to bustle around, rush, and make ridiculous mistakes.
«But did he really say he made it all up?»
«Of course. He also added that a good photographer needs to know how to make people laugh.»
His grandmother smiled.
«So, you’ve been trying to recreate our photo all day?»
He admitted that he barely moved from the staircase.
«Well, you’re just like your grandfather.»
After the conversation, the young man opened his phone’s gallery and began deleting dozens of almost identical pictures. Suddenly, among them, he found a photo he had dismissed as ruined that morning. In it, a boy with a giant yellow inflatable dolphin was running down the steps, looking back at his father. The father was carrying two heavy beach bags and trying to maintain his balance, amusingly holding his arms out to the sides—they were both laughing.
The shot turned out badly. The circle covered part of the stairs, the painting cut off at the edge of the frame, and the sea was barely visible. The young man was about to delete the photo, but he stopped. He remembered his grandfather, who many years ago had been trying to maintain his balance while holding a camera, just like him.
In the evening, Grandma met him at home. Tea was already on the kitchen table, and an old family album lay nearby. They spent a long time looking through the photographs. Grandma wondered about the light-colored columns, asked about the frescoes, and recalled walking up those stairs with Grandpa long ago.Then, the grandson showed her the last picture. A boy with a yellow dolphin was laughing while glancing back at his father, who was struggling to hold beach bags.«And what is this?» Grandma asked. «It’s stairs too.»She squinted.«You can hardly see the stairs at all.» «I know.» «And the sea is gone somewhere.» «A little bit is there.»Grandma looked closely at the photo.«And look how that boy is laughing!»The grandson explained how he accidentally took the picture and had initially planned to delete it. Grandma looked at the screen again.«Grandpa would have kept a photo like that.»
She opened the album and placed her phone beside it. On one photo, a young woman was laughing at her future husband, who had nearly fallen on the stairs. On another, a boy was laughing at his father, who was trying to hold heavy bags. Both photos were slightly blurry. The sea was barely visible in either one. The grandmother gently picked up an old card.
«You know, ” she said, „I’ve almost forgotten what it was like back then. I remember the sea, the stairs… But how he stepped on the bag—that has completely slipped my mind.“
She chuckled softly. Her grandson looked at her and suddenly noticed how similar her smile was to the one captured in the old photograph. Not the hairstyle, not the dress, not the youthful face. It was the smile.
For a moment, it seemed to him that the girl in the picture hadn’t disappeared at all. It was just that many years had passed, the city had changed, new photos and new stories had emerged. But she was still here, at the kitchen table, laughing at the person who was no longer around.
The grandmother carefully returned the photograph to the album and closed the cover. Then she looked at her grandson.
„Well, photographer, did you at least take a swim?“
He shook his head.
„I knew it! You’re just like your grandfather. He could spend an entire day with his camera and then complain that he didn’t really see the sea.“
They laughed. The next day, the young man printed a photo of the boy with a yellow inflatable dolphin. The grandmother placed it in the family album next to the old picture from Henichesk. On the back, he wrote the date and the city’s name. Then, after thinking for a moment, he added just two words: „Failed photo.“
