Back in 2003, camera phones were still toys, not tools. We snapped things not for likes, but out of curiosity — ちょっとした驚き, the small wow of daily life.

That summer, I spotted something absurdly perfect at a market in Shimoda: a square watermelon. Neatly boxed, gleaming, and priced like jewelry. I took a photo, typed “surprised＋disappointed too expensive,” and sent it to a contest run by Asahi Shimbun.

Somehow, it got printed. Page 28, July 26, 2003 — a full spread of small wonders from all over Japan. Kids playing, pets sleeping, dandelions, and my square watermelon sitting there among them.

It was an age when novelty was gentle, not engineered. We didn’t yet have AI aesthetic filters or social algorithms rewarding outrage. Just ケータイの小さなレンズ — a pocket window into the quiet comedy of life.

Now, when I look back at that newspaper clipping, it feels like a time capsule. 儚いけど美しい — fleeting, yet beautiful. A reminder that wonder doesn’t need to be optimized. It just needs to be noticed.

The SO505i, which I used to snap this photograph was released by Sony Ericsson in 2003, was a small revolution in the palm. Japan’s first 1.3-megapixel ケータイ camera — unheard of at the time — it had a swivel lens that clicked like a tiny camcorder and a 2.2-inch QVGA screen that actually felt cinematic. For many of us, it was the first device that blurred the line between phone and camera, communication and expression. Its design was unmistakably Sony: metallic, compact, a bit futuristic, and unapologetically proud of its engineering. When I took that square watermelon shot on the SO505i, it wasn’t about megapixels or composition — it was about the thrill of seeing the world through a gadget that finally let you capture what you felt, not just what you saw.