“You put your camera around your neck in the morning, along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
—Dorothea Lange, A Photographer’s Life, 1978, p. vii
I just love my camera! It helps me capturing not only images but moments, situations, atmosphere, life. It slows me down and makes me pay attention to details I would maybe miss otherwise. Often though, I do not take my big camera with me but rather its smaller sister, a compact camera with a good zoom lens. While I love the options and possibilities of a full-frame system camera, it is still a lot to carry around. And sometimes, I simply use my mobile phone, even though I usually miss having a real zoom then…
And yes, I notice that this slowing down and paying attention to detail now also happens when I do not have my camera with me. I then take pictures with my inner camera. Unfortunately, the storage device I then use does not always work as well as an SD card…