The Things We Stop Seeing

One of the strange things about carrying a camera is that it slows you down. Not physically. Mentally. You stop walking from one place to another and start noticing the bits everyone else edits out.

I walked past this scene because the mannequin caught my eye. It took another second to notice the couple behind it. Then the photo booth. Then the man's glance towards me. By the time I'd pressed the shutter, I realised there were four different subjects in the same photograph, all competing for attention without acknowledging one another.

It made me wonder how much of life we simply stop seeing.

Walk the same route often enough and the buildings disappear. The shop signs disappear. Even the people become part of the furniture. Our brains are remarkably efficient at filtering out anything they don't think we need. It's probably useful if you're trying to get to work. Less useful if you're trying to notice the world.

I don't think street photography teaches you to see more. I think it reminds you how much you've stopped seeing.

The funny thing is that this photograph will be different for everyone who looks at it. Some people will notice the mannequin first. Others won't see it at all. Some will be drawn to the couple. Someone else will wonder why there's a photo booth tucked into the corner of the frame. None of them are wrong.

Perhaps photographs don't reveal the photographer as much as the person looking at them.

We all notice the parts that mean something to us.