unphotographable

There are no photos on Unphotographable, which is how I like it. Its author says: "Unphotographable is a catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter."

Here's one of my favourites from his site:

"This is a picture I did not take of a gaggle of kids dressed in three-piece suits and spring dresses, coagulating on a sidewalk in front of their church on Easter Sunday, punching each other's shoulders and playing with each other's hair, while one boy, a bit taller than the rest and standing out on the left edge of the group, looked right at me as I approached in my car, driving into my new neighborhood for the first time with a load of boxes, and he flashed me the widest, most welcoming happy-Easter-Sunday smile, right before looking over his shoulder to see where his cohorts were or if any adults were looking, before turning back and gritting his teeth at me and flipping me his extended middle finger."

I wish I could write with such simple, astute observations, instead of in my long-winded meandering manner.

But anyway, in my grandmother-story way, here are my "unphotographables" from Sunday:

This is a picture I did not take of the aftermath of a gal-friend brunch, the black-and-white text-only placemats littered with crumbs, stained by drips from the gooey egg benedict and splattered with the shared green tea tofu dessert; the smeared used utensils pushed right to the too-small table's edge; the leftover flatbread pizza, packed for takeaway and forgotten on the fourth empty chair.

This is a picture I did not take of 500 oily teenagers pushing us irrevocably forward in an indoor flea market with insufficient lighting from the venue's usual purpose as a nightspot, the packed racks of $5 pre-loved, now un-loved clothes a blur going past the corners of my eyes; a hand clutching my arm for dear life as we navigated through the pack, trying to keep our heads up, breathe and make it out alive; one final look back into a heaving sea of heads and arms and legs.

This is a picture I did take of my garden ornaments as the light slowly went out, which does not in any way represent how I spent my Sunday, except that it does capture my extreme shyness in taking out my camera in public places, in the presence of strangers, in the company of friends, even.