Creative minds often struggle in a corporate 9-5 set up. Unless these folks [READ: ME] have a creative outlet, insanity, resentment, frustration and all that other good stuff may set in. In my new job I am trying to proactively avoid any sort of such breakdown.

So I had an idea:

I always take my lunchtime walks – get air, stretch the legs, purge myself of stale office air.

PLUS

I finally bought a much-needed (and upgraded) camera. [READ: Permanent lunch partner.]

EQUALS

I’ll snap my insanity away mid-day through Midtown Manhattan. My strange neighborhood – smack between Penn Station and Port Authority. I’ve got a lovely mélange of the remaining sex shops, hat stores, wacko beauty-meets-porn shops, and Macy’s on 34th Street. Photojournalistic Lunchtime Sprawls by Me. I like it.

I’ve always loved photography. My father developed my black and white baby pictures in our bathtub in Russia. I won a photo contest in high school and I spent a summer at UCLA taking photography classes. It’s always been a part of my life. I often see the world with a frame around it. I try to let the shots find me more than me find them. If it’s worth remembering, it makes itself known.

With the advent of digital photography, everyone has acquired the power to become a historian, creating an organic scrapbook documenting their life. No longer is the camera only brought out for graduations, weddings, vacations, holidays. Today we are armed with cameras in any basic mobile devise. The corner drugstore sells disposable cameras of all types: film, digital and video. It’s both easy and accessible for any person to capture their life on film.

Having a camera all the time reminds you that every day is special. Any day could be a day that changes your life. I bring my camera to the playground, the grocery store, a garage sale.

And now, to lunch.