Day 23: Life without a camera

Well, it was actually only a few hours. And I did have my camera, but the battery died and I didn't have my backup battery.

I took a different way home Friday from the London Centre because I had seen some guitar shops on the way from the bus and have been dying to play. Played some nice guitars, but I didn't find anything that had as good of a sound as the Ovation or Martin at home.

Headed to Russell Square after this because I spotted it on my map and figured I should take a new way back to see new things. My camera battery had died earlier while taking a walk around Leicester Square for class, but it was actually kind of nice going to the square without being able to use a camera. For a bit I kept spotting shots I wish I could take, but after a while just resigned to the fact I couldn't use my camera and stopped focusing on pictures I wished I could have taken. I ended up just sitting down in the grass where the sun was hitting (finally, it's been sunny this week!) and watched people.

I realized after a bit of this that listening to my iPod was as much of a preoccupation as having my camera and then took out my headphones. It's so nice to get rid of all of the things, the electronics or any kind of preoccupations. I'd like to think that when I'm holding a camera in my hand I'm much more observant, but is that really something you want to be all the time? Sitting in that square without my camera made me feel like I could just be. I wasn't some temporary observer trying to see what I wanted to capture of the place; I was living in this space at this point in time just like the other people around me.

What a beautiful Friday.