Experiment In Uneasiness

I had a couple of birthdays to do some shopping for this week, so today after work I headed over to the mall. I hadn't taken my photo of the day yet and I briefly considered taking my camera into the mall and playing around with the soft ambient lighting inside. But just thinking about doing that made me cringe. Because people inside might wonder who the weirdo is walking around by herself taking pictures of the mall. People might wonder if I'm taking pictures of them. People might think I must be a loser if I have nothing better to do than walk around the mall by myself taking pictures of boring plants and strangers. Do you even understand that? Let me spell it out. I was afraid some stranger MIGHT have an opinion or judgement about me THAT I WOULD NEVER HEAR OR KNOW ABOUT. Wow. Just another one of my many issues.

So I decided to take the camera in and force myself to take pictures in the mall. And guess what? I survived. I didn't see any pointing fingers or hear any snickering behind my back. Of course, I only took 3 pictures and they were technically more like snapshots than pictures that I composed. Also, I'm fairly certain that each time I stopped and snapped a pic my cheeks got redder and redder. But hey, it was a baby step. I spent about an hour in the mall with the camera hanging around my neck the whole time. And I survived.