We all use our cameras in different ways. Do you take group shots with your friends using your iPhone? Are you an Instagrammer who takes photos of things you buy, the clothes you wear, and random sunsets with random filters? Perhaps you’re an Asian who takes pictures of your food? A globetrotter who takes photos to remember where you’ve been? A selfie fanatic? I am none of these, and I wasn’t conscious about how strangely I used my camera until now.

This Thanksgiving week, I returned to Boston, my home for five years. I got to catch up with old friends, eat great food, revisit my old stomping grounds, all while toting my immensely powerful camera. Yet, what pictures do I have to remember the experience? Not one picture of my friends. No shots of food, nothing Thanksgiving themed, nothing at all related to the interview that motivated the trip. Yes, the Thanksgiving feast was delicious. Yes, the food was plated well and looked just as tasty. and my camera could have pulled off some excellent shots. I was just too focused on having a good time with company and eating to think about that.

Perhaps I should have toured the city of Boston and posed in front of landmarks like a typical tourist? Sure, I took a few of typical spots like the public garden, but I’ve wandered around the city toting my point’n’shoot to learn the basics of photography by taking pictures of anything and everything for a full year before. No, this time, with my amazing DSLR, I searched even deeper, hunted even harder for those pictures that were previously impossible.

California gets beach sunsets, but the East gets harbor sunrises. Thus, the morning of Black Friday, I decided to get deserted night shots, check out shopping deals, and catch the sunrise all in one go. Were I a Twitter fanatic, my geotagged 5-mile trek through Boston might look like this:

• wow, Allston is deserted at 2 am… I can just stroll down the green line tracks #boston #yolo
• The #Esplanade, just as creepy at night as I remember. never-ending corridors of spooky trees…
• it’s black friday! why is #NewburyStreet still closed at 3 am? #blackfriday
• seriously considering investing in smartphone gloves. why is it so cold! #such cold #how winter #so freezing #doge
• whaa, flimsy smartphone gloves are $15?!?! forget that nonsense.
• it’s black friday! why is #DowntownCrossing still closed at 4 am? well, everything except Macy’s… #blackfriday
• i wonder how many people out there shop at 5 am to pass time. i found a $5 shirt! #yay #blackfridaysuccess
• patiently waiting  for 7 am sunrise in North End… #JKnotPatientAtAll #WhyIsItSoCold #WhyIsSunriseSoLate #WinterNightsAreTooLong #HurryUpSun

Nah, that’s not my style. All you see in the end is one picture accompanied with a boring uninformative title, like so:

Well, all right, maybe not just one. While passing a storefront on Boylston Street, a mannequin display caught my eye and made me laugh.

That’s not to say that I didn’t take pictures at all. All throughout my journey to North End and back, I was looking around, searching for the next interesting shot. I consciously mapped a path to hit all interesting spots, pivoting the entire trip around sunrise, of course. I even paid the geese a visit at the Esplanade. Maybe they missed me too because when I approached the bank, they inexplicably swam towards me and started grazing around me.

Unlike humans, the geese don’t seem to fathom the social implications of having their pictures taken. Like most people, my friends don’t appreciate being photographed during our meal gatherings, and I’m not one to commemorate reunions with Instagram group pics anyway. I haven’t really decided how I feel about those type of pictures. There is a time and place for them, of course, but casual shots are decidedly less casual when with a pro camera.

I’m not one to take pictures of the food I eat, either. Granted, my f/1.4 lens can make most foods look pretty palatable in restaurants’ abysmal lighting. Even for a brunch as memorable as a disgustingly heart-stopping plate piled with potatoes, bacon, sausage, egg, cheese, and toast… nope, no pictures. Besides, people might invent ulterior motives behind food pictures. I could post a picture of a pumpkin spice latte that I drank in New York, but what would my friends think of me? People would probably hate me if I flaunted a hundred-dollar steak if I ever had one… And who knows what people would have thought of me if I shared a photo of the cucumber/kale/citrus juice I sipped out of a mason jar (seriously, I drank that on this trip). I might proudly share my own culinary accomplishments, but otherwise I try to limit food photography.

Anyway, my old roommates and I had a nice time catching up. We walked through the freezing streets of Boston together and complained loudly all the way. We did some pull-ups and got some Halo in. We talked about how much our fledgling adult lives differ from college and indeed how much we miss being at Harvard. Quite understandably, none of that required any photo documentation. However, when there was some paper-writing downtime, out came my camera, and out I went. Alone.

There’s a reason I don’t invite my friends on my photo adventures. I wouldn’t want to have them stand around on a freeway overpass as I try to balance focus and bokeh. The wouldn’t want to hang around Kenmore Station as I time my shots against the Citgo sign. Certainly no one wants to brave an earnest downpour just to watch me fumble with my camera. No, my friendships are worth more than that.

But when I’m alone, I can waste as much of my own time as I want. For example, I visited Kenmore Station because of a funny anecdote from when I got my tripod last year. I had set it up at Kenmore, but a bus conductor got upset and told me I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the station for security reasons or something and proceeded to chase me away. Well, this time, I only had to pause for 1/30th of a second to get my photo. Ha, Take that, conductors! Well, they saw my conspicuous camera anyway, so they told me off again this time. Didn’t listen, got my shots anyway.

Rain used to mean the end of picture-taking, but not this time. With my weather-proof camera I ventured forth fearlessly. The drizzle didn’t faze me; the light rain provided some intriguing photo ops that didn’t work out; the downpour was risky but exhilarating. To capture the rain, the actual fast-falling, transparent, all-soaking droplets of rain, I found myself on Mass Ave., hiding under a tree that was throwing down huge droplets of water, waiting for cars to zoom by and illuminate the splashes at just the right angle. Yeah, I’m sad I didn’t get to share these adventures with anyone, but I guess that’s just how it works for now.

Fast forward to Monday, the only day I could make it to Harvard. On my way, I dropped by the picturesque courtyards of Harvard Business School, where I got nothing. I checked out the vantage point from the top of Littauer, and the weather did no favors there either. Nothing at Porter. New Quincy didn’t deliver. November is a frustrating photo month, when all the leaves have blown away and none of the snow has come yet. It’s just cold, cloudy, colorless, and dreary.

A little disappointed, I stowed my camera and headed inside the Science Center. Maybe I should have visited Hall B, the SciBox, and all my old classrooms and taken pictures for posterity’s sake. Maybe I should have snapped selfies with all my old acquaintances that I passed by in the hallways of the science center and tagged them on Instagram with things like “look who I ran into!” or “surprise! looks who’s back!” Nope, I didn’t do any of that. I visited my old teaching buddies and had honest conversations about what’s been going on back at Harvard and what’s been going on with me. I mentioned photography, but the camera stayed stowed away.

Finally, what I was waiting for, intriguing lighting conditions previously inaccessible with a small camera but effortless for my super light-sensitive big camera. The result was passable, but nothing special. And that was it… In fact, the trip didn’t yield any fantastic photos, which was rather disappointing.

I didn’t bring my camera on interview day, obviously. Can you imagine odd it would be to walk into a med school interview with a suit and tie and DSLR hanging around my neck? Besides that, tourists take pictures to remember places they’ll never visit again, and, well, I don’t want to jinx it!

Back to the original question: how is it that I use my camera? My ultimate goal with my camera is to find photos that are beautiful and interesting to share on Facebook and Tumblr. The best earn a spot in my portfolio. So apparently, I use my camera to attempt art. I take my photos extremely seriously and do my best to make them look awesome and photographic but still real and believable. Whether I succeed is up to you to decide, I guess.

I think many people these days are starting to seamlessly integrate smartphone cameras into their lives through social media. I’m the opposite. The way I approach photography demands careful planning, patience, and diligence. My camera and determination to only generate high-quality photographs force me to brave the cold, the night, the rain, and to do most of this alone. Somehow, my camera has torn a rift between my life as a solitary wandering photographer and the life I share with my friends. I don’t know how I should feel about that.

Quite separately from my photography, I had a great time reconnecting with Boston and seeing my friends again. I even performed solidly at my interview, so perhaps I’ll be back soon.