Carrying a camera every day teaches you things no tutorial covers.
It teaches you that light is everything and everything else is negotiable. A boring subject in great light beats an interesting subject in flat light, every single time, no exceptions.
It teaches you that people are kinder than the internet insists. In years of pointing cameras at strangers, I’ve had a handful of bad moments and hundreds of good ones. Most people are flattered. Some want to talk. A few become friends.
It teaches you to slow down, which at my age is less a lesson and more a lifestyle. You can’t photograph a place at forty miles an hour. You have to walk it, stand in it, wait for it.
And it teaches you that the best camera is the one you’ll actually carry, which is why my serious cameras keep losing to the small ones. The camera on the shelf takes no pictures. Profound, I know. Put it on a mug.
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