taking pictures, taking lives

Photographs. Motherfucking photographs! They can ruin the experience of a vacation. Once you have a camera, it´s hard to put it down. You are always looking for than one photograph that can capture your experience, capture the moment so you can relive it at home. And with digital cameras, the possibilities to take those moments are endless. You can snap away indesciminently, careless even. With film, you used to really think about what you wanted to take a picture of. Not everywhere you went was worth it. Now, EVERYWHERE you go you take a picture! On the one hand, it can be a helpful travelogue to map out exactly where you have been. You don´t have to rely on your memory or hastily scribbled notes from on the road and you can experience your vacation back home more completely than ever before. But on the other hand, with the sheer amount of photographic memories you take, they all in a sense become meaningless. One picture is just one many, and the memory or experience you tried to capture, might not seem that important if you look at all your photographs together. Also, the taking of those pictures, in a way, becomes the experience of vacationing itself. All you do is take pictures (it can become an obsession to take that one perfect photo) and you easily forget to also take the time to take in the place you are photographing. The Japanese of course are the worse example, they rush out of their bus, take pictures and rush back on their bus No time to experience the moment, just time to take a photograph of it. At home there is time enough to experience the vacation. It would be a shame if that is what we will become, now that digital photography is so common place. Digital photography is not only the death of photography, but also of you well deserved holiday.
So let´s make a vow. Just once in a while, leave the camera in the car, take the time to take in the scenery and just rely on your memory. A picture can´t capture your experience anyway. Especially here in NZ!