Camera Log 04 – It Watched Back

Some things don’t need eyes to see you.

Lisbon. Evening. A low sky, the kind that presses down on rooftops and thoughts.

I don’t know why I took one more.
Maybe I thought the last one was a fluke. A glitch.

But this one…
This one felt different.
Decisive.

It made a sound I hadn’t heard before — low, drawn out.
Almost reluctant.
Like the camera was holding its breath.

The photo came out darker.
Thicker, somehow. And the air around it smelled faintly metallic, like something overheated.

There’s a burn mark at the top, perfectly round.
And inside it, a pattern. Sharp, small… like teeth.

And the shape in the center, it’s not the sculpture anymore.
Not really.

It looks like a figure.
Turning away.
Or maybe turning toward.

And that’s when I felt it:
the image watching me.

Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
It felt aware.

I kept staring at it, waiting for it to move.
It didn’t. But the silence around it thickened.

And somewhere in that stillness, between the photo and the hum of the film,
a thought surfaced, quiet but insistent:

I don’t think these were the first photos I took.
I think they were the first the camera gave me.