Take photos that matter and share without overwhelm
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When you’re visiting any tourist hotspot, the one think you’ll notice is the endless jockeying to take “the” photo. Selfie sticks, lines for premier photo spots, phones raised above the crowd, TikTok and YouTube videos recorded in situ.
Clearly great vacation photos are important to most people.
But, how many times do you take a slew of vacation photos and rarely, if ever, look at them again? Or, you review them long enough to get them on your IG and then totally forget about the photos your worked so hard to get?
I once heard Jerry Seinfeld malign people “entertaining their phones” out in the world, and in WanderWoven style, I challenge you to take a moment and rethink how you capture your vacation and share it with others.
In this post I’ll discuss a rethinking of vacation photography, being present in your trip, how to meaningfully capture your trip, and how to share photos with others in a deeply connected way.
Rethinking travel photos
Once upon a time, travel snapshots were rather precious. There were only so many exposures on your roll of film and these precious rolls cost money to buy and develop. Shots were carefully chosen before taking.
But in the digital era we can take billions of photos with little effort and little thought. It seem so simple! We fixed the problem of photo scarcity and rarity.
But, many of us are now drowning in a sea of digital cloud storage, disorganized photos across multiple apps, and countless photos and videos we never look at or care to look at again.
We’ve replaced one photo problem with another.
Another issue with travel photos is the vast availability of photographs of countless key sights across the globe. Do you need a picture of the liberty bell when the one online is clearer and higher quality?
Do you need a photo of the Japanese garden, when the website boasts significantly more and better photos with ideal light and staging?
I’m not sure.
What I am sure is that we should rethink the way we approach and engage in travel photography – I’ve crafted some questions to help get you started.
- Why is this particular shot memorable? What story does it tell about me or my trip?
- What memory will this photo help me recall?
- Does taking this photo help me experience this place and time more deeply?
As much as I love photography, sometimes I deliberately leave my camera behind and my phone tucked away.
I want to see and feel a place. I want to observe the people and listen to their voices. I want to feel where I am.
A camera sometimes blocks that.
And the chaos of competing for the best selfie spots is exhausting and frenetic for me. I’ll skip it.
Choose to be present
It can be difficult to be present in the here and now. This moment.
Mindfulness – or the focused attention on awareness – is a powerful connection to an experience that can seem fleeting – such is travel.
There are dozens of other benefits to being mindful and deeply aware of our internal and external environment – lower stress & anxiety, better management of depressive symptoms, fewer mental distractions, increased pain management.
However, as a traveler, I find focusing on awareness is key to really understanding, what is this place? What is it like here? What is valued here? What is missing and what is abundant?
Once you’ve invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of your valuable time planning, packing, transporting yourself somewhere new, don’t you want to feel it?
Using the questions above will help guide you towards travel photography that aligns with mindful approaches, rather than simply snap shots that are quickly forgotten.
Capture meaning meaningfully
Of all the photos I take on a trip, some are more share-worthy than others. Some move me and bring me immediately back to where I was and what I experienced when I took it.
Some are, forgettable.
Thankfully due to our abundant technology, these forgettable shots are easily deleted. But for the ones that I connect with once home, I try to think carefully about what it is about these shots that is appealing.
Then, I try to replicate the style of these images on my next trip.
According to researchers at MIT, elements of high quality and meaningful photos include:
- Photos of people
- Indoor scenes
- Large, human-scale objects
Disappointingly for me, landscapes, although beautiful and moving are often forgettable photos.
Share photos with connection
When I was younger and more enthusiastic about social media, I’d come back from somewhere special and dump 5 – 7 of my favorite photos, add a caption and upload.
While a couple of people might like the album or make a brief comment, there was little to no connection in these shares. No one understood the story of our trip or the context behind the photo.
It was, rather empty as an experience.
Part of the reason I travel is to hopefully encourage others to travel too! I hope that my stories and experiences can encourage others to try something unexpected and new – whether in their own city or somewhere exotic and remote.
In recent years, I’ve turned to other methods to share my photos and the story of my trip.
Journaling: I’m an avid collector of journals with smooth rich paper, and pens that glide across the page in an array of colors. Some of my favorite and affordable options include an affordable set of composition notebooks and a box of pens from Artzera. These are truly some of my favorite things.
Scrapbooking: I’ve gone through several phases of my scrapbooking life, but lately I’ve moved to less elaborate and flashy designs for a simpler approach. This smaller book is easy to fill (and feel you’ve accomplished your goal) and is easier to store and manage than a larger book. I love the kraft pages.
Travel Map: Once on a plane I watched a series of videos by illustrator Mike Lowery who wrote and illustrated one of my favorite children’s books, Gingerbread Man Loose in the School. In this class, he walks you through the process of designing, drawing, and illustrating your very own custom travel map highlighting your physical movement through your trip. It’s fantastic!
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, the reason we travel is to have a meaningful experience. With our travel partners, with our loved ones back home, with the people we have yet to meet on our adventures.
Is your photography habit getting in the way of you truly achieving that?
How could you adjust your thinking about travel photography to get more out of the photos you take and avoid separating yourself from the experiences you’re trying to have in the present moment?
I challenge you to capture your travels in Wander Woven style.
Cheers!
