My Theory of Vacation Photography

As regular readers know, I’m currently in Madrid. As usual, I brought along the Nikon D-70 and am taking lots of photos. There are now about 74 of them up on Flickr.

Since I started seriously traveling about a decade ago, I’ve formulated a basic philosophy of travel photography for the average person. It’s predicated upon two beliefs:

• Many better photographers than I have taken better photos of every monument, view or notable building in a given region. If, for example, I want a remembrance of the Eiffel Tower, I can buy one.
• I don’t want more than 4-6 photos of myself or my travel companions. After all, I know what we look like.

So, what’s left? Everything, really–the entirety of my travel experience. That said, I don’t aspire to photograph everything–like any art or craft, it’s all about choice. I try capture the spirit of trip. I’m not so interested in what I saw, as much as in how I saw it.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t take boring photos of people and monuments. It does mean that I try to capture the details of a place (without sounding too twee)–the zeitgeist. Whether that means some coffee cups, a flag or part of a dress in a funky shop, the images should remind me of where I was and how I felt. I think many people take photos more for the people they left than for themselves. I’m definitely imagining myself looking at these photos in five years, and remembering.

Of course, the best photo was the one that got away. We went out on Sunday night to watch Real Madrid play Barcelona–the biggest game of the year between two Spanish superpowers. At one cafe, we went upstairs to find a long room where men sat in rows, as in school. They stared up at a small TV high on the wall. A beam of light shone in from a partially-open window, illuminated by the smoke from the men’s cigarettes. It was a great moment, but I hadn’t brought my camera.