A vacation scrapbook

Probably everyone living today grew up in a time where clever corporate marketing convinced us that it was necessary to spend more time documenting our family vacations than actually experiencing them. At first this was enabled by cheap point and shoot cameras which gave way to Polaroid instant photography and nowadays to the ubiquitous click and share technology of phone cameras and social media. Unfortunately, society’s demand for instant simplicity and instant gratification does not leave time for most people to learn how to use the technology except in the most superficial way.

The result is, I imagine most of us have multiple shoeboxes or memory cards full of pictures of such poor quality or potential photographic interest that they will never be revisited. I venture that I could fill a good sized wall with pictures of people and places that, at best, I can barely remember. Even worse, the compositions are so lacking in originality and execution that they don’t spark any hint in my mind to what I was feeling or experiencing at the time.

For this summer’s vacation I decided to experiment with a different approach (although I do admit to taking a few typically uninspiring family snapshots). We drove a loop around our corner of the southwest and visited and photographed common tourist destinations along the way that apparently most of the vacationing population had also decided this year to visit at the same time. Starting in southern Arizona, we headed west to Los Angeles via a mountain resort diversion. Then, we looped back through Las Vegas and Flagstaff via historic Route 66 in the desert high country, before heading south and home to complete the loop.

Along the way (with a few exceptions when we didn’t find ourselves in a crowd), I took photos of the same things I found myself elbow to elbow with others busy documenting their journeys. The approach I took, which I hope was a little different from the rest, was to try to capture the environment, the mood and the feelings I found in the moment through deliberate composition, timing and some well considered cropping.

Time will tell how successful a project this was, but already in looking at these images again, I think I remember more of the moment I was experiencing than I might from a less deliberate, simpler documentary type of snapshot. And that is enough, for me, to make it likely I will continue to revisit some of these images for a long time to come. So. even if you can’t resist taking and posting selfies, after they are in the bag, I suggest stopping for a moment or two to consider your surroundings and think about composing a more deliberate record of what you are living in the moment. A month, a year, or a decade from now you may thank yourself for taking that little bit of extra time to really be present in the moment.