Do you remember when a ‘selfie-stick’ was called ‘your mate’? Or ‘a complete stranger asked to take your photo’? By the Taj Mahal, Victoria Falls, Shelf stand at Spurs. And because no-one now moves from their lounge to the toilet without a fantastic, super-efficient, self-editing, telephoto-enabled, high definition camera with in-built distribution system in their very hands, that’s not the way it always was. Just 20 years ago you’d have had to entered that toilet with a camera, developing kit (with little red light and chemical baths) and a fax machine. These days, before you’ve even ‘shaken’, your selfie is being ‘liked’ all over the frikkin world.

In previous ages the first item you’d pack for your holiday was: The Camera!!! Complete with 7 alternative lenses, ranging from 35mm wide angle to the monster 200mm telephoto which was 3 feet long and as heavy as the rest of your luggage combined. Nowadays its almost an afterthought. And I’ll be honest, if I’m visiting a city, I simply wouldn’t bother. The phone would more than suffice. And if I wanted something ‘special’ photographically, I’d use the iPad.

But packing before our recent trip, I just kind’a found my camera whilst rummaging for other shit and thought: hmmm, camera, I remember them, maybe I’ll take it.

It’s not a ‘big’ camera. I stopped doing the whole ‘SLR’ route when I heard of a bloke who fell off a ski-lift in what would have been a very ‘nothing’ event, but he fell on his Nikon and cracked most of his ribs. After that I went ‘small’. Compact. And my camera, which I bought at least 12 years ago (when did YOU last buy a camera?) is about the size of a phone. But has the capacity of 25 paparazzi. When we went to the Galapagos (probably the last time my camera was properly deployed) I took a stunning picture of some bird or other, from the boat, miles away, with my tiny little pocket Panasonic Leica. And it was brilliant. (I won’t mention the 22,000 crap shots of my sandals, blurred animals, Mel’s left ear and other delights that accompanied it). New Jersey Steve who took the same shot with a fuck-off Nikon on a special tripod he had to carry for his special ‘Guns of Navarone’ type telephoto lens, asked for a copy of MY pic!!!!

I’m not a photographer. To me ‘composition’ is an essay on the Merchant of Venice done in the 5th form, very reluctantly. I don’t have ‘the eye’ for ‘that shot’. But sometimes, like the famous ‘enough monkeys with enough typewriters producing the complete works of Shakespeare’, I get a good shot.

This one was again from a boat. In Doubtful Sound. I shouted for the sea lions to move to their left a bit, but did they listen? Did they fuck! Otherwise I’m proud of this. And for the fact that no phone on the planet (including mine; I tried) could get such a shot at about 200 yards on a distant rock.

Happy Wednesday. Apparently I have to go to work. What’s ‘work’ again?

A xxxx