man verus machine

I confess that I’m out of my comfort zone here. This is the gym for heart and respiratory patients that I attend each Tuesday. Today, as well as my trainers, I brought along my camera.

There are so many stories in this place, but capturing any one of them means I am going to have to be patient; something I have come to be quite good at. Perhaps it’s no surprise that patient (the noun) and patient (the adjective) are spelt the same.

Many of the people here are a bit self-conscious about their inability to do things they have previously done effortlessly - until fate brought them to this place. So I decide to concentrate on blipping the machines rather than the people; that will have to be another day, once they are used to me wandering around with my camera.

At the end of the class, people go for a cup of tea and a chat and I’m left alone - more or less - in the gym to take some pictures. I’m lying on the floor setting this shot up when Derek, one of the helpers, notices me in the prone position and assumes I’ve collapsed. “What are you doing?” I try to explain that I’m just doing my blip for the day, which means absolutely nothing to him and I grab the shot before he calls the fire brigade.

I tell him all about blipfoto and he’s quite interested in the idea; I also mention that I’ll make him a print of the shot. At this, one of the old guys wanders past and mumbles something about “… bloody David Bailey…”