Question 1

Why do we use había apuntado and then vi in the same sentence?

Accepted Answer

Había apuntado means "I had pointed." This is the past perfect tense, which we use to show that one past action was already completely finished before another past action occurred. The later action is vi (I saw), which is in the preterite tense because it happened suddenly after the camera was already in position.

Question 2

Could I use ahí instead of allí here?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and they are often used interchangeably in casual speech, but there is a slight difference in distance. Ahí usually means "there" (close to the listener or a short distance away), while allí implies something farther away from both the speaker and the listener ("over there"). Since the speaker is pointing a camera at something distant, allí is a great choice.

Question 3

Había can be used for "yo", "él", "ella", or "usted". How do we know it means "I had" here?

Accepted Answer

You're right that había on its own is ambiguous. However, context clues usually clear this up! Later in the sentence, we see vi (I saw). Because the subject of the second action is clearly "yo" (I), the listener naturally assumes you are also the one who pointed the camera, so you don't need to explicitly say yo había apuntado.

Question 4

What kind of "flash" is a destello?

Accepted Answer

A destello is a sudden gleam, twinkle, or burst of light in the environment. You'll often hear it used for things like a glint of sunlight reflecting off glass, a spark, or distant lightning. Note that if you were talking about the actual electronic flash built into the camera itself, you would usually just use the English loanword and say el flash.

Había apuntado la cámara allí cuando vi el destello.

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