The Importance of Travel Photos

There’s a controversial statement swirling around, one I’m sure almost everyone has heard:

Taking photos takes away from the actual experience.

The bold statement is backed by sub-statements that suggest that when attention should be focused on the present surroundings and the focus is instead distorted through a viewfinder, the moment is ruined and cannot be fully enjoyed or savored. Less details will be absorbed, and therefore the overall experience is diminished because you spent your time hiding behind a shutter.

Well, I’m here to make an equally bold statement:

Taking photos enhances your overall experience.

And I’m going to tell you why.

Ever since I was a young kid, I have been passionate about snapping photos and capturing memories that can later be reminisced through the form of photo albums and scrapbooks. Whether I was holding my original Tweety Bird camera, my teal point-and-shoot, my first DSLR, or my current 70D, I was and am passionate about taking photos. I was never really focused on the technicality behind it, but rather capturing beautiful scenes and moments that could be cherished years (and even generations) later. Although I am consistently trying to perfect and enhance my craft, my main goal is to show how beautiful the world is to every one that I possibly can, and to be able to forever capture a particular moment in time. If I can accurately portray the beauty of a place that I’m staring at and inspire someone to step into that very place, then I’ve done my job.

So why does capturing photos enhance your experience and overall result in a positive outcome? I have three reasons:

• Attention to detail
• Sharing the beauty
• Capturing a moment

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Before I pull out my camera and begin snapping photos, I am 100% in the moment. When I arrive to a beautiful overlook, a stunning waterfall, a mountain peak, or any point of interest that enraptures my attention, I visually capture any detail that I can grasp onto. My eyes are like a video camera that’s constantly rolling, and as I’m recording the scene in front of me, I am paying immaculate attention to detail. As a travel and adventure photographer, it is my goal to capture photos that inspire people to want to visit the very area that I’m standing in. And part of the process of taking a photo is absorbing the entirety of a scene to survey the best spot for a photo. If I didn’t have a camera or I didn’t wish to share my surroundings with others, I may not pay attention to the butterfly flitting on top of the cluster of wildflowers beside the trail or the rare bald eagle flying in circles above the tree line or the way the sun is producing a shimmery shower of diamond-like leaves dancing as they fall to the ground. These details enhance my overall experience, making me appreciate the beauty of my surroundings on a whole new level. I am not only looking at my surroundings, but observing them.

Once I’ve appreciated the scene in front of me and have shared some precious moments with my hiking partner, I then pull out my camera and begin snapping photos. Those photos that I’ve snapped aren’t just random clicks of the shutter; they’re carefully thought-out, meaningful pictures that quite literally carry a thousand words on their shoulders. When I look back on the pictures days, months, or years later, I will remember not only the visual scene that lies within the portrait or landscape frame, but what I felt in that moment, what I smelled, what circumstances may’ve happened before or after the shutter was clicked. If I didn’t have these photographs to look back on, I wouldn’t be transformed back to these precious moments that meant so much to me. So not only am I enhancing my current experience, but I’m creating moments that will be able to be reminisced years later. Memories may fade, but photos won’t.

SHARING THE BEAUTY

This statement may’ve been said once, but it needs to be reiterated: I capture photos not with the intent of a perfectly crisp, perfectly composed photo, but a photo that tells a story and a photo that inspires others to want to travel to the places that I’ve been to and care deeply about. I capture photos to seize a moment that can transport me back to that day. To that summit that my wife quite literally ran up while on a caffeine power-drive. To that waterfall that almost swallowed my phone. To that muddy trail that I should’ve slipped on but instead sprained my ankle in the parking lot outside that very same trail. To that natural bridge that made those vehicles look like Matchbox cars driving on one of those road rugs I had as a kid, simultaneously making me feel on top of the world. To that Grand Canyon adventure that overwhelmed me to happy tears and where we almost fell victim to dehydration. To that insane rock scramble that my nine year-old dog summited. To that lake where my brother lost consciousness and I reeled in the biggest fish of my life. To that forest in Indiana where a massive tree cracked and collapsed just yards in front of us. The scary moments, the hilarious moments, the jaw-dropping moments, the raw moments. I crave to remember it all and cherish it forever.

I don’t like traveling alone because sharing moments with someone else (or many others) is half of the experience. When I see something magical or breathtaking, my first instinct is to want to grab the arm of the person I’m with and say, “Do you see what I’m seeing?! Isn’t this amazing?!” I’ve said “Do you see this? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” to my wife countless times as she’s staring at the exact scene that I am. I’ve heard many stories of solo hikers or solo travelers who say that though they love the peace and flexibility of adventuring alone, they desperately miss the companionship when they come to an incredible, noteworthy point.

Sharing moments with someone else enhances your overall experience. And there’s a certain thrill that comes with posting a photo online or showing off a photo that I’ve carefully scrapbooked because with their reactions come with not only praise, but desire. Desire to see the place, feel what I felt, experience what I experienced. Sharing the beauty of the world is a high for me, and looking back on these moments is almost as amazing and satisfying as the original moment.

CAPTURING THE MOMENT

So what happens after I snap a photo, and maybe share it with a handful of people or post it online? I take the digital files to a print shop and have the photos printed so that I can display them in scrapbooks! I will forever be an advocate of printing photos as opposed to keeping them preserved digitally. Files can corrupt, computers can crash, and media can change. After all, many of us had videos on VHS and were forced to transfer them to DVD when VHS became obsolete. Now the DVD and CD fad is slowly diminishing, and flash drives and streaming services are becoming the new media. But what happens when flash drives are replaced or a new social media replaces an old one? The safest way to preserve your memories is by printing them, period. Many people chose to file them in photo boxes, but I find solace and happiness in storing them in scrapbooks. I spend countless hours cutting, displaying, stickering, crafting, and captioning not only because it makes me happy and allows me to stretch and highlight my creativity, but because it preserves those priceless memories.

I have been preserving my photos in albums for as long as I can remember. My parents have dozens of albums from when I was young, and I have my own that I’ve crafted over the years. As of 2012, I began scrapbooking, and I’ve never looked back. It’s a fun way to keep photos organized with personal splashes of creativity that are so gratifying to look back on. I not only mount pictures on pretty pieces of paper, but I add fun titles, themed stickers, pieces of memorabilia such as maps and hotel keys and tickets, and captions of funny moments that are always a blast to reminisce. It’s like a photo journal of my life’s journey that is available 24/7 to look back on. What could be better than that?!

So let’s take a moment and swivel around to the original comment at the beginning of my post: Taking photos takes away from the actual experience. Why do so many people feel this way? Simply put, capturing photos and taking snapshots are two different things and are often confused and intertwined. Capturing moments with your camera versus absent-mindedly snapping a photo. Capturing moments with a camera involves attention to detail and consideration of not only your surroundings, but your feelings and emotions surrounding it. Photos that are taken randomly, such as a selfie or snapshot of a random object that you flippantly decide looks “cool” aren’t as meaningful and are typically just taken out of habit or social media influence. These snapshots are what could potentially take away from your experience.

So how do you know if you are taking photos to capture moments or snapping random scenes? Take a look at your recent media, whether that be on your phone, computer or scrapbook. Spread out four or five different photos and consider them deeply. Do they evoke any emotions? Do the photos transport you back to that exact moment? Do you remember what you felt in that moment and what might’ve happened before or after you took that photo? If you answered no to any of the questions, the photo might be just a snapshot. If you answered yes, and the photo brings out those thousand words I was talking about earlier and transports you back to that moment in time, your photo is a captured moment. I admit that I have fallen victim to the “snapshot” phenomena many times. When I look back on the photos that I’ve taken on a particular trip, it’s quickly evident which photos I will keep versus which one are just random pictures that I won’t ever share, publish or display.

So why might someone take a random snapshot? Reasons for snapshots could be as simple as “I just want to share my current status with social media” and brag about what you’re seeing right now. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Many people aren’t sentimental, and they just want to check items off a bucket list, and don’t care how they feel about it, or they don’t wish to be transported back to that moment, and that’s totally fine! Other reasons could be lack of time or crowds. I’ve taken photos in a hurry because crowds are filing in and I’m not in a position to revel in the moment. Sometimes, I get lucky and the photo does make the “cut” and portrays the raw beauty of the place, but other times, I see a random photo and I don’t even remember taking it, or I associate the photo with the annoying memory of being rushed and crowded.

So how can someone who falls victim to the random snapshot instead begin capturing moments and enhancing their overall experience? First, step back, take a deep breath, and cherish the moment that you’re in. When you reach that finish line of that grueling hike and you’re now standing under a massive waterfall that’s so loud you can barely hear your own thoughts, or sitting on top of a 14,000-foot summit with wind so strong that your hair is whipping around in a tornado nest on your head, grab a snack, share a drink with the person you’re with (if you’re not flying solo), and sit back and relax. Enjoy the moment and absorb your surroundings with all of your senses. Now, when you go to pick up your camera and capture a photo, you will (possibly) unknowingly snap a picture of a particular scene that grabbed your attention while you were soaking everything in. And when you go back and look at that photo, you will remember that funny moment you shared with your friend or that flock of antelope you saw prancing at the summit or that sweet smell of rainwater and pine that tickled your senses by the waterfall. That is a photo, and that is a memory captured. And hopefully, when you share that photo with someone else, they will see the beauty and want to not only visit it themselves, but also hear about your particular experience.

So while many people do believe that snapping photos takes away from a moment, try to look at it from this perspective: A photo, if taken with intent, has the power to enhance your overall experience; it can make you pay closer attention to detail than you ever would without a camera; it allows you to share the beauty with both your future self and family and everyone around you; and you will have those moments forever captured in a form that allows you to reminisce on what you saw, how you felt and what was happening at that time. Instead of a fuzzy recollection with hazy edges, you will look back on those memories years later with confidence and clarity because photos (and maybe those scrapbook journal captions) are worth a thousand words. Or more.