Five reasons to leave your camera at home

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The very idea of going naked into the world without the camera-bodyguard makes "tourist" personalities nervous. One goes forth to "capture" the entertaining, alien "other," holding the world at arm's length with the fantasy of being a dispassionate observer, instead of acknowledging that if you're there, you're a participant.

However, to be fair, my screen saver at home scrolls through the "My Pictures" directory, and every so often I get to see the face of the sweet waiter in London, the monuments of Washington, D.C., my family and departed friends, and that blue bicycle parked by the sidewalk planter in San Francisco.

The happy medium could be taking a little camera but keeping it in your pocket rather than "at the ready."

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