There are people–lots of people–who like to name things. I know people who’ve given names to their car, who’ve named their computer, who’ve named their favorite camera. I’m not one of those people. I don’t anthropomorphize gear. A camera is just a tool. You choose the tool best suited for the job you’ve got planned.

I say that, but lawdy, I’m starting to develop a relationship with my new camera. My Ricoh GR3X and me, we’re becoming buddies.

Why? Because this camera seems to have been designed almost specifically for the way I shoot photographs. I’m not a street photographer, although I enjoy shooting street. I’m not a landscape photographer, or a fine arts photographer, or a portrait photographer; I don’t really belong to any of the more common photographic traditions. I belong to what I like to call the flâneur school of photography.

If you’re not familiar with the term, a flâneur is somebody who roams around idly observing the world while being somewhat emotionally detached from it. Somebody who’s not necessarily involved in what’s taking place around them, but is keenly aware of it. One writer described a flâneur as “an amateur detective and investigator of the city.” The term is usually applied to urban life, but it’s a philosophical approach to the world that can take place anywhere. It’s a strange nonjudgmental balance between being analytical and emotional.

(By the way, the term flâneur is French but it’s derived from the Old Norse verb flana, which meant “to wander with no purpose.” And if you’re wondering how a French word is derived from an Old Norse word, you need to read more about Vikings.)

That’s how I shoot photographs. Hell, that’s largely how I’ve lived my life. I’m a flâneur both by nature and by training. Almost every career I’ve had involved the same basic process: observe, analyze, filter the analysis through emotion (or the emotion through analysis), then act. It’s a skill set that helped me as a medic in the military, as a counselor in the Psych/Security unit of a prison for women, certainly as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense, and even (to a lesser extent) as a teacher.

In terms of photography, being a flâneur just means noodling around, paying sharp attention to detail, and seeing stuff in terms of composition. What’s cool is that when it all comes together–the scene, the light, the moment–there’s an immediate emotion, a serotonin hit that’s generated whether you have a camera or not.

My Ricoh GR3X is ideally suited to the flâneur school of photography, partly because it’s so compact and easy to carry everywhere. I’d heard you could carry it in a regular pants pocket, but I assumed that was mostly bullshit. It’s not. I’ve done it; I’ve walked around–I’ve ridden my bike–with this unit IN MY GODDAMN POCKET. It also turns on almost immediately, which is incredibly handy. Best of all (I’m not sure this is actually the ‘best of all’ because there are so many ‘best’ things about this camera), you can shoot with one hand. Even in the manual mode, you can control all the settings you need with one hand.

Seriously, you can pull the camera out of your pocket, turn it on, compose the shot, adjust all the elements of exposure with one hand, take the shot, turn the camera off, and put it back in your pocket…and you can do all that in just a moment. Which is pretty much what I did with the photo above. As I was walking down the street I noticed the ginger cat. I stepped off to one side so as not to spook the cat, which is when I noticed the woman’s legs. Her legs were in shadow, so I had to quickly adjust the exposure to make sure they’d show up in the photo. Then a step back to include the tree and the window in the frame, and there it was. Maybe ten seconds from seeing the cat to taking the shot. One hand.

It’s not a perfect camera; I’d love for it to be weather-sealed and dust-proofed, but I’m not sure it’s possible to do that without making it bigger. It’s more important (to me, at any rate) to have a camera I can tote in my pocket than one I can shoot in the rain. There have been a couple of instances where some fill flash would have been handy; the GR3 series doesn’t have a native flash. But, again, that’s small beans.

The fact is, this camera has already allowed me to get some shots I couldn’t have done with any of my other cameras. And it’s allowed me to get some shots quicker and more easily than with my other cameras. I could have made the shot above with any of my cameras, but it would have taken longer and I’d have had to use both hands. It’s not a great photo (I shot it largely as a reminder to go back when this bar was open), but I was able to get the depth of field I wanted with a minimum of fuss. That absence of fuss is like heroin; it’s fucking addictive.

So yeah, it looks like me and the GR3X are becoming good buddies. I look forward to spending time with it.