When I was a child, my sisters and I were regularly taken on family walks, and we often grumbled about it. On one of these occasions we were with a friend of my parents’, and as we made our way along the footpath she told me how, when her father went out walking, he was always sure to spend a good deal of time looking down. She said his pockets were full of interesting things, very often things people had dropped, little treasures he found as he went. I often think of him when I notice an interesting thing.
I have decided to make a record of some of the things I’ve seen when I am out walking.
What do we miss when we look at the world held in the palm of our hand?
And how can we persuade ourselves, or reassure ourselves, that it is worth the effort to look away? That when we turn our attention wholly away from the device, we will be rewarded? That sometimes to walk through the landscape without a phone to our ear can give us exactly what we need?
I am trying to train myself to put my phone away and out of mind until it’s really needed: no idle texting, no calls, no checking instagram or emails, and the camera only to be used when I see something I feel I truly want to keep. In truth, it’s hard. But I am convinced it’s worth it.
