Me without my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
I went to the proms one night at the Royal Albert Hall (very la di da I know) but you can go up in the upper gallery for only six quid. You can lay out on the floor whilst listening to incredible classical music in what is probably the most stunning live concert venue in the country for an entire evening for little more than what you would pay for a pint these days. Its a great atmosphere and people take blankets and picnics with them.
Whilst up there I saw a guy sat up there who looked like he had been beamed down from the 40s although he looked like he was in his 40s so he must have been born in the 70s (confusing I know) and he also had this teddy bear with him which also looked like it had been around since the 40s. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was maybe a tad too old to be out with a teddy bear. He looked very happy, unlike his companion who looked very miserable.
So why no photos this week?
During the month of August I don’t post anything as its nice to have a social media break but for the first time ever I also didn’t take my camera out with me for the entire month either. It was tough at first as it has been a clean decade since I’d left the house without it but after a while it became truly liberating. We have all become slightly obsessed with documentation and to be out and not have that as an option was an unimagined pleasure. To be somewhere and just live it rather than thinking about how it could be captured and packaged was truly joyful. And the longer it went on the more I wanted to stay in ‘living’ mode.
The scenes I have (badly) drawn for you this week are moments where I would have killed to have my camera with me but all I could do was observe, not capture. But maybe because I absorbed the situation fully and not through a lens means that maybe they will stay with me longer. Apparently if you take photos at an event you are much less likely to remember them as the brain assumes the machine has it covered. This is possibly why my memory is totally shite (nothing to do with lifestyle choices whatsoever, no siree)
I love taking photographs more than anything and it is a compulsion that I can’t see myself abandoning but am fully aware we are drowning in content, relentlessly bombarded and we do our best to plough through it and consume as much as we can whilst making our own contributions. and I am a relatively heavy content provider so know I am part of the problem and definitely not part of the solution but I feel we have to flag it up now and again or we will lose perspective on what is actually important.
So what to do? Live or document? The answer is obvs a matter of balance. We mustn’t sacrifice the former for the latter. Choose your moments and live the others.
please note: normal photographic service will resume next week.