I didn’t set out to make friends this year.
There. I’ve said it.
I set out to take photographs. That’s what I do. Every day, one roll at a time, a little camera in my bag and a head full of small things I’d like to remember.
But somewhere along the way, the photowalks happened. And they have turned out to be the highlight of my year.
I honestly didn’t see that coming.
Oxford.
Southampton.
Winchester.
Norwich.
The New Forest.
Five places, five walks, and a small gang of people who all turned up with the same slightly odd habit. Film. Actual film. Rolls that need winding and counting and a bit of faith.
I should confess that I’m not naturally a joiner. And despite being a Leo and the supposed centre of attention I am absolutely not in my comfort zone in groups. I’m the sort who arrives a little early, hovers near the edge, and checks her bag twice. I rehearse the opening line in the car. Something about the weather, usually. British to the core.
And then it never matters.
Because with a photowalk, you don’t have to make conversation from nothing. You have something to look at. Someone has a camera you haven’t seen before, and that’s the start of it. Someone else is crouching on the cobbles to catch a bit of light on a doorway, and you find yourself crouching beside them.
Nobody asks what you do. Nobody asks where you’re from, not at first. They ask what you’re shooting.
It’s a lovely way to meet people.
There’s a particular sort of walking that happens too. Slow. Stop-start. Everyone drifting off in different directions and then drifting back. A few of us in a loose huddle outside a big old stone building, somebody gesturing, somebody else listening with a camera hanging round their neck. Backpacks, bum bags, jackets tied round waists. Nobody looking terribly glamorous, and nobody minding.
I love that.
I think what surprised me most is how easy it is to be in a group of people who are all looking up, and down, and sideways. Nobody is looking at you. Everybody is busy noticing something.
Which, for a woman of my age, is oddly freeing.
I’ll be honest, there are days when I don’t feel especially visible. Or when I’d rather not be. Menopause has a way of making you feel like you’re wearing somebody else’s face for a while. So being tucked into a crowd of people with their eyes on the architecture is a gentle sort of relief.
And yet.
The odd photo of me has come out of it.
Not many. I’m not the one holding the camera, usually, and I’m not one for posing. But every so often someone has lifted theirs and caught me mid-sentence, or mid-squint, or looking off at something else entirely. And a few of those, I quite like.
I quite like them.
I’m not sure I’ve ever said that about a photo of myself before.
There’s something about being photographed by someone who is paying attention, rather than someone who is just checking I’m all in the frame. These aren’t pictures of how I look. They’re pictures of how I was, on a particular morning, in a particular place, probably talking too much with my hands.
And because it’s film, I don’t get to see them straight away. I have to wait.
I’ve come to love the waiting. It’s a little like a letter in the post. By the time the scans arrive, I’ve half forgotten the moment, and then there it is again, slightly softer than I remembered.
Some of those friends I now message between walks. Little things. A shop I think they’d like. A film stock I’ve heard a rumour about. A photo of a door.
It’s a funny sort of friendship, built on looking.
My dad would have understood it, I think. He liked people who were curious about things. He’d have asked all the practical questions, too, mainly about batteries.
I miss that.
But I think he’d have been pleased to see me turning up, with my bag and my nerves, and walking off down a strange street with people I’d only just met.
So that’s been my year, really. Not a grand plan. Not a resolution. Just a handful of cities and a handful of kind strangers, who stopped being strangers somewhere around the second roll.
I went out to take photographs.
I came home with friends.
Who knew?
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find out where the next one is. I’ll be the one near the edge, checking her bag twice.