I no longer carry my camera around with me. I'm quite sure that I did at the beginning of this school year that's now swiftly approaching its end, but I may be wrong and I haven't carried it all year. There would be a certain logic in that since its primary use was on Thursdays when I would photograph the activities of a course I taught, and that course didn't take place this year. But there's another, perhaps equally logical reason which would suggest that I stopped carrying the camera only around the middle of the year. In January I started traveling to Tel Aviv almost solely via train - driving to the Ashdod train station, getting on the train there to Tel Aviv and from there via bus to campus, and the reverse for getting home. I quickly learned that I preferred to travel light, and it made sense not to add my camera to my bag (or strap it over my shoulder).

Although not having the camera with me would certainly cause me to take less photographs, it makes at least a much sense that no longer having my "traditional" items to photograph made carrying it unnecessary. The end result was, of course, the outcome of a combination of the two - no reason to have the camera if I'm not using it, and by not having it I got out of the habit of using it. Whether or not this situation is what led me to reflect on how I relate to the accumulation of photographs in general is ... well, I guess that that's the topic of this column.