For the first time in a while I spent the entire day out in the streets, just walking and observing. Occasionally finding myself sitting on the crumbling walls or benches of old parks. Watching as the life went by around me. People walking to and from places. People, like myself, just sitting and taking in the beautiful light of the day. Some would be with others. Some would sip on a hot cup of coffee as they smoked a cigarette or read books. I would walk, find a place to sit, walk more. It wasn't a particularly eventful day but it was definitely one I had been needing. Here and there I would take a photograph or little video of the surroundings, but the creativity wasn't particularly flowing.
But I don't mind that. Photography and videography for me is something that does manage to get me curious about my surroundings. It's something that has me getting up and out into the world. So even if I come back home with four, two, or even zero photographs, the result is that I lived. I got out into the world and observed it, beyond four walls in which nothing happens beyond a screen. I walked through the little courtyards, all silent from the main streets of Yerevan. I walked through alleys that led to nothing, leading to me having to turn back and attempt to find a new area to explore instead of returning to the same familiar streets I had just walked down. Not a lot was going on in the city, but it was kind of nice in that sense. I'm a bit tired of the festivals, and it's nice to see the everyday life of the city.
Yerevan's a small city, so it's interesting how it always feels like it's full of new people. Sometimes you recognise faces given it's so small. You see them in new and old areas. Though much of the time I'm noticing people in the usual places I had never seen before, which brings me that curious question of what everyone is up to. What are their lives like? What are their dreams? Their struggles? That person across the park sitting lonesome at a bench. That person waiting impatiently at a crossing that seemingly never turns green. Or the happy little couple that are walking their fashionable dog.
Eventually I found myself walking with company. Holding my gimbal in one hand, a stray dog with great excitement just appeared by my side. Its tail capable of powering the city with its energy. It spooked me a little given how suddenly it appeared, with its wet nose brushing against my hand. Though once I realised how gentle it was, a young little thing, I played with it for a while, photographing its behaviour. It followed me for a while, until at a crossing it just suddenly disappeared. I was a little sad that it had just left, I had no idea where it could've gone. One moment it was by my side, the next it was gone. And my lonesome travels throughout the streets continued. Deeper into residential spaces, through the old Soviet panelkas. I saw hammer and sickle symbols on buildings. Statues of the past. Smoke stacks that towered above.
An old man that must've been pushing 90 tried talking to me, my Russian skills went out of the window and I could barely get a word out. Trying to explain to him that I couldn't really understand him. I felt the need to go home and learn, to really study, so that I could actually speak to these people that lived within these places I was exploring with such curiosity. To hear the stories they have to share. I remembered why I loved roaming the streets so much, though this time I went home with a bit of gloom over realising how much I want to interact with the locals sometimes.