Who is making these pictures?

Not me, apparently. I keep going out with the borrowed camera, and I keep coming back with nothing I feel is worth posting. The late-day light through the autumn leaves was gorgeous. I was relatively invisible with the small, retro-looking camera. I thought there was enough light for 200 ISO. I set it on shutter priority, 125 so I'd have fairly sharp edges. Everything should have worked.

But I'm just not feeling this.

Taking stealth pictures doesn't feel like me. When I have my big brick Nikon, I know I'm conspicuous, so I'm forced to talk with people, engage with them. Timid though I am, I have to introduce myself, say a little something, ask permission. And so I learn something about the subject, involve the subject in the exercise. But it limits me to taking pictures of people who have time to talk to me. I don't often get busy, middle-class people because it would be too intrusive to stop them and engage.

I always thought I'd prefer to be invisible. But now here I am, invisible with this little inconspicuous camera. And how do I feel? Isolated, lonely, and voyeuristic. Nor am I all that thrilled with the quality of the shots.

I'm so glad I didn't sell my car to buy this camera. I'm glad I'm having a chance to play with it and to learn about myself with it. These are valuable lessons.

P.S. I see that last year I made a similar and even less interesting stealth street shot, so this also tells me something about the ways I have evolved in the past year, and that, too, is helpful.