Wallflower Armor

It’s comforting to have a pretty serious camera again. Since effectively giving up film photography a few years ago (first by laziness, then officially when I accidentally sprayed WD-40 instead of air into my beloved Pentax K1000), I’ve been using tiny, mediocre digital cameras that could give me halfway decent pictures (compared to what more money might have gotten me), but never the same satisfaction as I would get from a more substantial piece of equipment. Sure, a better camera lets me take better pictures (which is why I got one in the first place), but I’ve also realized that it’s a better prop, too.

By “prop,” I guess I mean “shield.” People take you more seriously as a photographer when you have a less subtle camera, and don’t give you as many funny looks as they do when you just whip out a tiny one and stare intently at its screen. Effectively, you look like you mean business, so people assume you have some business taking pictures. For a wallflower like me, that’s very, very comforting. My social skills are famously ineffective at bars, parties, and other big social functions: I’m shy, I fidget, I get self-conscious talking to people I don’t know. I mingle badly, and have never been able to master the art of standing around and sparkling. I don’t smoke or drink, so those standard props don’t work for me, either. With a camera, I have something to do that makes me feel more at ease. It gives me a way to participate that bridges the gap between my solitary and my social instincts.

Luckily, though, I learned a long time ago to see through a camera lens but not just through a camera lens. The camera may be my shield and my crutch, but I’m careful to look up and experience what goes on around me, too, using all my senses. In that way, the camera reminds me to pay attention to what’s going around me, instead of getting too wrapped up in any nonsense happening in my head. So there’s this strange relationship: it helps me hide but draws me out at the same time. Plus, I don’t have to worry about what to do with my fidgety hands, especially with a camera that’s hefty enough to require them both.