Since starting this blog, my photos have gotten a lot weirder. A quick peak at my Flickr photostream will prove that; there are some truly random pictures in there. Some of the photos are strange but interesting and even though I’ve yet to find a use for them in a blog post, I still see their merit. Then there are the other random ones that were taken for less obvious reason. Those are where the real mystery lies – the mystery of the photos linked to never-to-be written, phantom blog posts.

Me, taking a photo. (Portugal, circa 2011)

The following photos are the only available information we have on these phantom blog posts that were formed, in thought only, in my tired and jet lagged brain.

I give you Exhibit A:

This photo was taken in a restaurant’s bathroom in Belfast. I have two very similar photos of this bathroom and I distinctly remember waiting until another lady left the restroom so she wouldn’t think I was weird. The thing is, I have no idea why I took them. As far as i can see, there’s nothing weird going on here. I’ve been in weird bathrooms, this is not one of them. See? It’s a total mystery!

Any thoughts? I see nothing out of the ordinary. (Northern Ireland, circa 2012)

And Exhibit B:

This one is from Amsterdam, and again, I took several photos of this same thing. It’s a street, a door and a walkway, and as far as I can tell, it isn’t much more. If you look closely, there is a picture of a snail on that blue sign, which is slightly funny, but it seems like if that was the reason for the picture, I would have just zoomed in to the sign, not gotten the whole street in the shot…. ahem, excuse me, all four shots.

Again… does anyone spot anything of interest? (Netherlands, 2012)

And Exhibit C:

Here’s one from the Philippines; the key to our beach bungalow. Like the others, I have multiple shots. I remember taking this photo at a restaurant and trying really hard to get a good angle and being disappointed with the glare on the whale. But the question remains… why did I need any angle of a cute, but otherwise uninteresting, key chain? Why former self? Why!?

In my defense, I’d probably already had, like, three rum and pineapple drinks that day so who knows what I was thinking. (Philippines, circa 2012)

And Exhibit D:

Here’s a map of Terminal 1 in the Tokyo airport. I distinctly remember first taking a vertical shot of this map, leaving, and then returning to take a horizontal shot because horizontal shots fit better on my blog. Asking ‘why?’ is getting repetitive so I’ll do this one in Japanese. なぜ I ask なぜ!

There is absolutely nothing weird about this photo. (Japan, 2012)

And finally, Exhibit E:

A recycling bin in Colombia. Move it along folks, there’s nothing out of the ordinary to see here… right? Or is there something to see? Something I may have missed? Ahhhh!

So they recycle in Colombia. Big whoop, so does just about everywhere else in the world. Except Texas, of course. (Colombia, circa 2013)

And that concludes my demonstration of exactly how I’m losing my mind.

Compiling all these mystery photos in one place had sent me into a complete tailspin as I sit here on this rainy Saturday in Portland. Am I going completely insane? I’d like to dismiss some of these as accidental shots or just random pictures I took to make sure I had my camera setting right, but that argument just doesn’t work because I distinctly remember the details behind executing every single shot. Getting the angle right, getting the orientation right and even waiting until a bathroom cleared out.

The only answer I can see is that traveling is making me crazy.

But I think I already knew that.

Ask me what I’m doing in the middle of this highway. The answer is I have no freakin’ clue. (Somewhere in the Southwest circa 2012)