Carrying around a camera gives me license to look at things most of us walk past without noticing. The camera seems to give me permission to linger, to observe, to look around and behind, to look down and up. One rainy afternoon we took shelter in a portico. There in the shadows I noticed stairs leading up. I walked over and pushed gently on the ornate wrought-iron gate. It didn’t yield. Standing there in the middle, looking up, I wondered what I might find were I able to get past that gate.
On second thought: maybe the camera doesn’t give me permission to linger. Maybe I’m just a lingerer and an observer, and I use a camera to justify to myself if not to others my fascination with the world around me.