One evening, while crossing a bridge over a section of the Riachuelo, Kirchuk focussed his lens on the river from only a few feet above the surface.
Last year, as the council was updating its management plan, it began looking at the river "through the lens of climate change," said David Troutt, its chairman.
Once scientists realized that viruses could be so large, they changed their search parameters and started finding other species in all manner of places, from swamps to rivers to contact lens fluid.
(In fact, the news media were tipped off in advance, and a row of photographers with telephoto lenses lined a railing near the river as French and German tourists asked them who was coming).
Attempting to ignore the myriad river-dwelling creatures whose Sunday afternoon I was gatecrashing, while trying not to get any river water in my contact lenses, I managed a cautious breaststroke for a bit.
Most of the photographs contain no people, on purpose, and the lens flattens and straightens houses and roads and rivers alike until some of the prints resemble hyperrealist paintings.
The present lighthouse was constructed on pilings out on the river and equipped with a kerosene-powered Fresnel lens.
It is shown that injection of an increased volume of river water leads to a larger extent of the subsequent freshwater lens.
Looking with those eyes and through the lens of innocence allowed his creativity to flow freely and fiercely like a river.
Now, walking in the country with his dogs, Alfred peers through his camera lens at a tiny, half-frozen stream, but what he sees is a torrential river raging down a wild gorge in central Asia.
