Zeb Andrews' photostream Pro User

Cameras are powerful tools. They don't just create images, they create perceptions... or even perhaps realities. Reality for us is how we see it, right? If our eyes and brains had evolved in such a way that down looked like up and vice versa (not such a far-fetched theory, really) then we would invariably think of the reality of down and up in such reversed roles.

Generally speaking, we use cameras to reflect our reality...or more specifically or perception of reality (not that they are really all that different in a fashion). But cameras can be used to introduce new perceptions, can't they? Look at the popularity of extreme wide angle lenses? Why do photographers like them so much? Because they show us a perception of a familiar world in a way we cannot normally see it in. It's exciting. I sometimes like taking it a step further. After all, there is a difference between stretching your perceptions of reality through wide angle lenses and completely re-arranging them. When you start to the see the world as re-arrangible building blocks, you start to think of the reality you so take for granted a bit differently too. See, that is what I mean by powerful tools. Cameras not only have the ability to show us the world in a different fashion, they have the ability to make us think about a different world, or even on occasion, believe in it. Crazy stuff.

Or maybe I have just had too much juice to drink.

I am reminded pretty much every day how lucky I am to be able to commute to work by walking. I have a 30 minute walk to get to work and then the same distance home of course. It is the perfect way to start the day or to unwind afterward. Over the years I have made so many photos, read so many books or just enjoyed so many mornings on that 30 minute commute. As I said, it is pretty much perfect, even on drizzly mornings such as this one.

I'm in landscape mode today, so a short break from London and a virtual trip to the coast are in order.

The Eye takes roughly 30 minutes to travel once completely around, meaning you get to know the people you are riding with... to a certain degree. The cabins are only so big after all, and there are about 20 of you in there, but then most people are stuck with their noses to the glass bubbles... or they are posing for photos.... or they are asking the fellow with several cameras (including one of them an odd wooden box) if he will take their photo for them. This man and his wife kept kind of aloof from the rest of our mini group though, posing in front of the windows for each other. They were so focused on each other they didn't hear the ka-clump of my Hasselblad as I got the fellow across the Big Ben.

Half an hour sounds like a long time to go around a ferris wheel, but trust me, it goes by so quick. And when it was over, we all stepped off and went our separate ways.

Just standing there in awe, with bare enough presence of mind to still operate my camera.