The “Luxury” of Looking

I haven’t been taking pictures lately. When packing for a holiday I asked myself if I want my camera with me and the answer was a resounding “no”. It made me feel guilty – am I betraying something? Or just moving on?

Now I’m sitting in an apartment in Sicily, staring at a vase with some artificial flowers in it, ready to cry any moment now at just how perfect they are.

It’s such a luxury to just be sitting and looking at something these days, with that something not being a (switched on) electronic device. And now I really miss having my camera with me. What a surprise – only yesterday I felt relief that it’s not here giving me a look of reproach.

It turns out in order to miss my camera I need to slow right down. As if the rhythm in which I function day to day is so accelerated that it no longer presupposes looking! When did that happen?? It took me so much more than a few lockdowns, lots of cancelled jobs/festivals/trips and God knows what else to even begin to notice that.

And now I feel this familiar sense of loss when I’m not able to take a picture… Nice to know I’m still a photographer after all!