Photos While Riding

One of the nice things about motorcycling is all the things that you see along the road, that otherwise seem more distant when a windshield separates you. I was on my way up to Binghamton , NY when I spied this interesting classic car. Without slowing down, I set the cruise control (yes, motorcycles have cruise control, too), pulled out my little Leica (small enough to fit in my shirt pocket), and snapped off a couple of shots. The Leica has image stabilization, which help make the picture nice and clear. All this happened without much thought. But when I look at this simple snapshot, I cannot help but think about how, a decade ago, this would have been much more difficult to accomplish. No motorcycle with cruise control, so I'd have to stop. No ultracompact camera, so I'd have to unpack it. No digital camera, so I'd have to get the pictures developed. Not to mention having to determine exposure settings, and having to focus the camera.

And no blog to post the picture on, so it would just sit in a pile, never to be seen by anyone but me. So when I think about it. I would never have taken that picture in the first place a decade ago. But here it is, waiting for someone to come along and click on it. And for just a second, it will evoke a thought or a memory that otherwise would never have occurred.