Packing up!

 Its come to be that time of year again.  I am trying to remember all the lessons  I read  and the video's I have seen. I am about to take my annual sojourn.  Normally there is a lot of emptying of my wallet as I rush to get the latest gadgets to make the trip work. This year is a little different I made the big purchases earlier and I think I  am short an external hard disk to store all the pictures but otherwise I think I am done!

So the questions are a bit more  esoteric as I complete this last week of preparations.  The places I am going are somewhat familiar to me so its not going to be shooting the thing unknown. Rather a return and a deeper exploration. Its funny when I look at other people's trips  I see them take a lot more pictures of the iconic and the touristy type of subjects. I use to look down on it as somehow less worthy, I think I am now starting to appreciate  what some of them have done and some have made  fine captures of so called basic things.  It  has made me reevaluate am I being to snobby and
forgetting to capture the obvious?

 Most people especially non photographers want to see the Eiffel tower if you shoot Paris or see the London Bridge if you are in London. You can try to bedazzle them with a very cool shot of an old man  pondering a quiet moment on a bench in Paris or a child chasing butterflies in London. But it doesn't necessarily  say "travel picture".  I think a certain amount of honesty is in order if we want to photograph the world and bring it home,  there are wonderful things you can do as appetizers but people come looking for the main dish.  If your purpose is to show people where you have gone it behooves you  to do just that. Just do a good job of it that shows a workmanlike process.

On the other hand if the only picture we bring back is of the iconic icons can we really say we captured the soul of the place. I think of those tourists  who put on a sombrero  and think now they are now Mexican. We  have to look a  bit more deeply, not be satisfied with the easily photogenic and  decide we want to capture the mood of the place. Is there a celebration, what is your POV(Point of view) so that we can see the smiles and laughter, are we looking at a Holocaust site. how can we capture the cold hang  in the air.  To me when you show people your pictures they should feel like you  felt at that moment. If the only thing they see is  a couple of frozen moment  grimaced smiles  in front of something historic do  they really feel like they were there or rather do they feel like they saw a picture of you in front of something historic. You could save a lot of money  and  Photoshop your best smiling picture in front of postcard prints.

 Yes, you may ask but I want to show my friends  how much fun I was having there. Well  that means we have to stretch ourselves creatively, Yes it means you probably can't reach into your back pocket  pull out your cell and snap and be done. It might mean you have to think a bit. And while that might seem like it does the job, how often do you look back at those shots and feel like it told a story.

I am sure I will expound on this later but not everyone will look at your pictures on a cellphone on Facebook and so you have to ask are the pictures your taking looking good on a full size monitor?

I

have a new camera in my hands and new lenses to boot. I  have some planned shots I wish to take but  I am really relaxed  and want to really slow down  the number of shots I take this year. I want to check and validate more and click less. The hope is that I will not be spending so much time on the editing side of the house trying to sift through so many pictures. I want to capture more people doing non touristy things particularly people working. I am interested in showing you what life is like in a place in a frozen moment. I want to capture the feel in air and the blaze of life   Thank you all for the journey so far and wish me well as I step up a bit and get glimpse of the horizon to conquer.