Girl on film

Before I set off for my last day of work in Japan, I popped into Timorous Beast’s new neighbourhood park for a spot of quiet reflection under the trees: highs and lows of life in Japan, lessons learned, memories to be cherished and events best forgotten – that kind of thing. Two salarymen smoked and giggled like schoolboys, a solitary OL ate her bento and stared sadly into the pond, no doubt contemplating another afternoon of her higher-paid male colleagues smoking and giggling like schoolboys while she does all the work, and group of grey-haired photographers pointed their lenses at the rhododendrons and nodded sagely. 

One of the photographers approached me and pointed at his camera, indicating that I should follow him. The camera in question was bristling with dials, knobs and extendable bells and whistles.  I’m not technically-minded at the best of times, and have long been afflicted with a curse whereby expensive photographic equipment that functions perfectly satisfactorily is transformed to a useless lump of plastic whose aperture refuses to open as soon as I touch it. So I was relieved when, instead of handing me the camera and gratefully leaping into a pose among the shrubbery, he directed me to sit in the gazebo while the Koishikawa Photography Club took photos of me.