Camera Log 05 - It Wrote Back

It used my hand to write the message. But the words weren’t mine.

Lisbon. Late afternoon. The light flat and gray, like it hadn’t made up its mind.

I changed the film.

Four photos in, the pack ran out — quiet, uneventful.
So I loaded a new one.
A fresh strip. My own.

The next photo looked normal.
A quiet Lisbon street, slightly overexposed. Nothing unusual.
But when I looked down, I saw it.

A message. Written on the white frame.
In my handwriting.

Only… I don’t remember writing it.

I know how that sounds. But I didn’t.

The words didn’t feel wrong because of what they said, but because they were already there.
Like the camera had been waiting for me to take the photo,
just so it could hand me something it had already decided.

"Now I see you."

I stared at it for a long time. Told myself I must’ve blacked out.
Must’ve written it without noticing.

But the ink looked aged. Faded at the edges.
Like it had been waiting there before I even touched the shutter.

And that’s when it hit me.

The first four photos I took…
They weren’t mine.
They were hers.

The damage, the distortion, it wasn’t just expired film.
It was residue.

I didn’t take those pictures.
The camera gave them to me.

And now that I’ve fed it something new,
it’s starting to speak in my voice.
Using my hand.

I hadn’t looked inside the bag until now.
But tonight, I opened it.

Five photos. A notebook.
A book with passages underlined in frantic ink.

All of it hers.

And I think it’s time I started listening.

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.