Travel
“Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.”
I’m not a savvy traveler. I don’t like being a tourist. My idea of travel is to pick a place and spend my entire vacation in that one spot. I memorize feelings through repetition, and this requires time. Hopping across landmarks, galloping through museums, packing and unpacking luggage - I’d rather stay home and watch reruns of Star Trek.
I am also not a frugal traveler. I like fancy hotels and upscale restaurants. I prefer cab rides to public transport or walking. I tip well, even for mediocre service. Generally, money is just falling out of my pockets. It is good news for my bottom line that I don’t travel much.
My biggest challenge with travel photography is that you must visit and document all the classic tourist traps. But it would help if you also found something that speaks to you. There are millions of photos -including mine - of Paris taken from the Tour Montparnasse. You stand in line; you pay the admittance fee; you ride the elevator; you make the photos and spend hours photoshopping the dirty windows out of your shots.
And then, in a futile attempt to capture your feelings, you spend days wandering around the city, taking photos of cafes, unusual doors, and content cats sleeping on the decks of péniches that line the banks of the Seine.
