Recently I was late meeting a friend for a social appointment. We were going to attend some free drop-in music improv events, but we had missed one by the time I arrived. I explained that I had dawdled on the way there, trying to take a picture with an old bellows camera someone had given me some 15 years ago. He seemed annoyed (rightly so, I guess). And I had to accept that the light being “just so” and “I’m experimenting with” was a poor excuse for lateness.

Anyone who’s walked anywhere in the/a city with me will have experienced me lagging behind, stopping to read notes on lamp posts, or to stare up at the sky or down at the curb at some non-obvious thing. Or to take pictures of random things like abandoned paper cups or dirty phone booths. I’ve had “we need to put a leash on you” and “you’re like a toddler wandering off” said to me. I’ve missed trains and busses (so many trains), because I stopped to look at or photograph something..

On behalf of my fellow dawdlers. And daydream wanderers, sorry, I guess. I don’t know how to explain what the world looks like to me. Or how the camera only half captures it.

But this is the picture that made me late. Taken with a rusty, dusty, 1951 Kershaw Eight-20 King Penguin using Ilford HP5 film.