Let's say I'm walking along a street, maybe out shopping and most likely without a camera (I need to think of a less loaded term than "proper camera") and suddenly right next to me there is a lovely jumble of stuff in a shop window, perfectly lit by the afternoon sun, or perhaps diffused by a beaded curtain of condensation and overlaid with reflections. At that point, as I stop to admire it, I used to think: wish I'd brought a camera! But I am learning to overcome years of prejudice and now remember to reach for my phone. In fact, increasingly I find myself choosing to go out with just my phone in a pocket; I need to have it with me, anyway, and what it can do well (which is not everything) it does as well as any pocketable "proper" camera. It's amazing, really, for a tarot-card sized slab of hi-tech wizardry.
Antique and junk shops are a favourite source of shop-window scenarios for me, reliably providing the sort of accidental still-life combinations that intrigue the eye with their hint of some deeper, layered, but elusive (and probably illusory) meaning. Curiously, it was only when putting this post together with these iPhone photos taken earlier in October that I realised the similarity of the names of these two very different streets in Bristol and Bath: North View and North Parade. Which is a coincidence as meaningless and yet as satisfying as the way those two mighty wooden heroes below might appear to be standing guard over a suburban street.
5 comments:
Very handy indeed are mobile phone cameras.
My wife and I are on another bicycle tour in France... and when we left our phones to recharge in the 'sanitaires' at a campsite the other day, another traveller, a gentleman undoubtedly from Germany called after us to say that we had left our 'handies' in the bathroom!
Insofar as utility is concerned, I find myself reaching out for the phone camera much more than the real 35mm which sits next to it. To be fair, the 35mm's black and white film doesn't get first preference in the face of the autumn colours.
Pritam,
I'm wondering how much of that enormous brick of film you were going to take will actually have been used! You could probably fit all of those potential photos into your phone several times over...
Mike
I've just taken 10 rolls, Mike. I suspect I'll get through them if I last the trip all the way to Portugal. It's 0°C tonight and we are in a tent!
Pritam,
Just ten?? My memory was you were taking an entire backpack full...
Ah, the joys of camping... You could always check in to a hotel!
Mike
Pritam,
I remember now: it was your trip to SE Asia that involved 50 rolls:
"On travelling... the missus and I took a trip to South-East Asia in 2017: we flew out of Geneva to Singapore for a start and travelled by foot, bus, train, boat through Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam over six months. Backpacks approx 10 kg each (my kit included 2 film Leicas and 50 rolls of black and white film!)."
(Comment on "The Trials of Travel", January 2021)
You've obviously learned that lesson the hard way...
Mike
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