I have a smartphone, but I don’t take many pictures with it. Looking at the pictures other people post always makes me feel a little like I “should” be taking more. Guilt creeps in to things so easily. Though I live in the city, so even if I do not have my camera out, I am very often on someone else’s camera. Is that a consolation?
And then I see many things that my camera just won’t capture well. The other morning as I was walking through the parking lot into work, I was stopped by an interesting sight. The sky seemed clear, but the moon was up and it illuminated a small patch of very thin and wispy clouds. It was a lovely sight but just try and take a picture of it.
The moon is infamous for this, for not showing up in pictures.
I took this picture today, of a nearly full moon. It looked to my eye like a big coin in the sky, but in the picture it may as well be a streetlight.
Mountains suffer a similar fate. The frame of the picture shrinks them down, and they lose all their grandeur when you can hold them in the palm of your hand.
On the whole, I think having a camera around all the time is nice. There are many things it is good to be able to take pictures of at a moments notice, whether because there is something beautiful or striking about what we see, or simply to take a quick note. But maybe it is not so bad that our cameras can’t do everything. It’s a reminder to look at things with your eyes and now, rather than a screen later. To take in the feeling of what you are seeing, not just the image.
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