The Days I Almost Didn’t Pick Up The Camera.

There are days when the camera feels a lot heavier than it should.

Not physically - though sometimes it can feel like that - but emotionally. Almost like picking up the camera is an admission that pressing the shutter is a commitment to being present in a world I’m not sure I always want to witness.

And because of those days. I almost don’t pick it up.

I wake up with that familiar weight in my chest quite regularly, the quiet kind that doesn’t scream but lingers. The kind that makes everything feel just slightly out of reach - time, motivation and even light. Photography, what once felt like breathing, started to feel like a chore.

I’d tell myself I’ll shoot tomorrow, then the day after and the day after that. When I feel better. When I can ‘do it properly.’

But the truth is, those days rarely come. Instead there are these days. The quiet battles. Where getting out the door feels like an achievement. Those are the days I almost don’t pick up my camera.

Almost.

Because sometimes something small interrupts the spiral. A sliver of light hitting the wall at the right angle. A stranger laughing across the street. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing enough to stop anyone else in their tracks. But I notice, and in that moment something shifts.

I don’t suddenly feel better. The weight doesn’t disappear but it loosens, just enough. Enough for me to reach for my camera, with curiosity. Or habit. I take a photo, not a masterpiece. But just proof that I chose to engage with the world instead of hide from it.

One photo becomes two, then two becomes an adventure and the adventure becomes a chase of finding the light again. Finding purpose. Finding meaning.

I am still capable of creating.

Sometimes the most important photos we take aren’t the ones we share but the ones that remind us we are still capable of seeing the world, even on the days we almost turned away from it.

Even on the days I almost didn’t pick up the camera.