Last time I wrote about the diversity of our land and the opportunities it brought to photograph cultures different from our own. I ended with a thought about missing out on the experience because we focus too much on taking photographs rather than the experience itself. And I admit... this can happen.
What we focus on influences our perception of the experiences we have when we travel. Long ago, my father went on a trip to Europe. He dutifully carried his video camera around and recorded events on the trip. When back home, we watched what he had recorded, and he proudly stated that he had "sacrificed" seeing what he recorded so he could get "great images" and share them. In essence, he traveled half way across the world and spent who knows how many thousands of dollars, to experience everything through a viewfinder. He could have just rented a video and watched it from home... It would have had better production values. Although this example may be an extreme case, we nevertheless do run the risk of missing out on something if we focus solely on our photography and not what is going on around us. I would suggest it is not the taking of photos that makes us miss an experience... it is our preconceived notion on what the experience has to be which determines how we are affected by that experience. To put it another way, our concept of what we are "supposed" to experience determines what we experience and how we react to it. If we travel and expect four star hotels, pristine beaches, and smiling foreign faces, then we have already decided what the travel, and the experience, has to be about. We create an artificial landscape, one manufactured in our minds, not in reality. And there isn't anything inherently wrong with that... I like four star hotels... they're comfortable and a great escape from the day to day world. But that's just it, they are an escape from reality. If we are interested in documenting what the world is really like, then we need to be a part of that reality. Of course, we could always go to the four star hotel and document that reality, a perfectly valid experience, but one that I would suggest is not the reality of the surrounding landscape or those who inhabit it. Again, I do not disparage anyone celebrating a pristine beach, a cruise ship tour, a holiday filled with Christmas decorations -- all wonderful experiences. My point is about determining ahead of time what the experience will be about, or allowing the travel to influence us. Will we, as my father did, see everything through a viewfinder, or will we be influenced by travel itself? Will we record what we want to see or will we record whatever experience we find? There is a meaningful difference here. In the first, we fixate on the recording of an experience and do not allow it to influence us, in the other, we are influenced by the experience and only then create an image that communicates what it has done to us. This is an incredibly powerful difference in our perception of the world. Creating photos, at least for me, has been transformative. It has enhanced the experiences I have been fortunate enough to be a part of, giving me an awareness of my surroundings and of cultures and people I am sure I would have missed otherwise. It has led me to consider what my place in the world is, from the vantage point of having the money to travel, having the time to take off work, having the luxury of being able to visit pretty much any country I choose to. Furthermore, I have been able to share these experiences through my images, and, at least I hope, have helped to bring about, if not a positive change, at least a better understanding of our world.
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I've been thinking quite a bit about travel and photography lately. Every year, my family makes a point to travel somewhere outside of our usual comfort zone. I suppose it is in my blood. Growing up, I lived in South America and Europe, traveled extensively with my parents, and was brought up to believe this was the way things were. Only later did I find this was not the norm for many, if not most, Americans. This is understandable, as the continental U.S. is large, so traveling outside its borders is not really necessary or always feasible. But I have known many who not only never visited our neighbors to the south and north, but have never left the state they were born in. This is astounding to me. To not even travel this amazing country of ours -- with its history, its diverse cultures, its landscapes of deserts, forests, mountains, and sprawling cities -- seems to be such a shameful loss of opportunity. Each region I visit holds so many hidden gems that make this world of ours so much more awe inspiring, so much more that what we see in our day to day lives. The experience of travel is essential to understanding not only our immediate culture, but the cultures of humankind. In the United States alone we can see this diversity of thought from region to region, from state to state. The people of New Orleans experience a world where storms and flooding are a normal part of life, where the rule of law is based on French principles, not English, where the history and culture were predominantly from French settlers; the West Coast is younger than the East Coast, with Spanish and then Mexican influences; the Midwest had settlers from all over Europe, bringing British, Italian, Greek, and Scandinavian cultures with them. And this is only a slice of the regional distinctions that make up the North American continent. Canada and Mexico have their own cultures far different from the US, First Peoples have cultures older than all of the European settlers, the slave trade and the import of Asian workers brought whole new layers of cultural history into the mix. As a photographer, amateur or professional, we have an opportunity to interpret the differences and similarities in the cultures that make up this land. How can we not? Lately, I've read a few online articles implying to photograph while traveling takes away from the experience, makes one focus on the taking of an image rather than the experience of travel. I have seen, from my own experiences, this can be true. But is this always the case? I'll expand on this next time. For now, I encourage everyone to take the time to travel outside their comfort zone. This may be as easy as driving a few hours to see a metropolis, a beach town, a farm valley. Whatever you are not used to... take the time to experience it. You will be all the greater for it.
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