Ah, this made me laugh long and hard. I also have a mix of opinions and agree with both of you to a certain extent. If I ask my main travel companion, my 11-year-old son, he would point to the Japanese cherry blossom incident. A few years ago in Kyoto, he had to place a ban on me taking any more cherry blossom pictures because it was really starting to interfere with his enjoyment of the day. Oops ...
My wife and I have a similar conflict. I tend toward Team Brent. Worrying about photos and framing and posing brings me out of the experience. I'll take a few photos, but I'm more likely to read the plaque and notice the statue without a camera than with.
My wife loves taking photos. I think the biggest contention for us is whether we should be in the photos or not. She loves posing for them and documenting her presence at a place. And she always wants me to, or at least asks me if I want to, pose in a photo. I don't feel the need to have photos of myself and feel that I'm less interesting than the thing I would capture in a photo.
The next biggest is how much time and attention should be spent on photography. I feel her photo urges favor preservation over presence.
We find a balance. I pose a bit. She often listens when I say it's too much.
My husband and I could've written this but slightly fuzzier lines of difference. I'm a photographer in my working life (babies not buildings) so although I love taking photos when we travel I try not to get too tripody/lensey/wanky about it because I don't want to feel like I'm working. Plus my husband is sooooo like Brent and just hates being in the photos. I find it frustrating because as I've always said, if you don't put someone you love in the photo you may as well have bought the postcard because someone has already taken a better photo of that "scenery/building/vista". I can often be found running along behind my husband with dslr in hand snapping and hoping I'm capturing something anything lol. I do now take a selfie stick (yes I said it, fight me) because I don't have very long arms and I like nice photos of us together in front of cool things we are seeing and unfortunately my husband doesn't have a an "eye" for anything except for picking the right woman. In my quest to keep it simple though I often come away disappointed with what I've captured. It's either not the right angle, not enough photos, not the right light, didn't bother to choose manual settings, etc etc etc and when I see other people's amazing photos eg. Michael's, I feel annoyed with myself for not taking that extra minute to capture something special. To be fair to my husband he is a fairly good sport. He knows not to touch his food before I've snapped a quick shot on my phone lest he lose a finger. Food is life in our world so I like to capture the food as a memory of amazing meals shared, not to share on the flappergram or the instaface, just for us. I've dragged that man to more Disney theme parks than he ever wanted to see, he follows along with my crazy travel schemes and rarely asks questions so I do try and limit how much time he has to spend in front of the camera. I do wish on occasion he would pay a little more attention when he is taking a photo of me though, it's a little disappointing when I craft an image that makes him look like a Greek God and meanwhile he captures a blurry shot of me with 3 chins, a nipple showing and muffin top for days. Well to be fair, he can't be expected to work miracles I guess.
Anyway, I think I'm team Michael for this debate but since I love old movies I'd like to give Brent a special mention for awesomeness.
I'll leave you with something that I believe to be 100% true.........Photos are our memories when our memories fade!!! Take the photo, then go back to being in the moment. That way you have both experiences xx
Hilarious! Also a really interesting question. We traveled a lot when I was a kid and my father was always an avid photographer. Still is! So, many of my childhood memories are of hanging around next to some monument while waiting for my dad to take twenty-hundred pictures. Fast forward to my own travels and I often feel I don't take enough photos. I think it's a matter of having to exit a moment to capture a photograph that sums up my feelings about being there. (Does that make sense?) I've traveled with my camera (of course I have a beautiful camera; my dad updates it for me every few years) and with just my phone, and when I do have my camera I do come away with beautiful photos that are a result of me looking for things to remember. So, as Michael mentioned with the statue of the bather, I see things I might not have seen otherwise. But I also sometimes feel that I'm not experiencing a location as only myself when I'm focused on photographing it. There is obviously a balance and sometimes I achieve it. A perfect day out and gorgeous pictures by which to remember it.
O M G. Full disclosure: not gay (but over 50). Wife of a man who takes photographs obsessively when we travel, but also almost exclusively of wildlife, so not only do I have to wait around for him to catch some (admittedly gorgeous) wading bird in just the right pose, but I have to ASK for the photo of the Hungarian parliament building bathed in moonlight (while he focuses on the birds flying around the spire - sheesh). And yet, he always seems to capture the memories that I want to save in our blog. This post made me laugh so hard that I was crying ugly Bette Davis tears. Thank you!!
OMG! We go through the exact same questions. My husband hates….absolutely hates…when I stop to take photos. He is always turning around and looking for me, while I am crunched up in some graffiti blanketed alley recording memories with my iPhone. During the pandemic, BV (before vaccination), I took an online IPhone Photography class to become a better photographer. I have received many compliments for my photography and I, too, believe it makes me a more perceptive traveler. One way I have brought my husband into my photographing life, instead of taking less photos, is for him to be my scout. He has a good eye, so he wanders ahead and looks for different angles, light, and interesting subjects to photograph. It works great for us. I love your posts. As always, thank you for your humor and unique approach to nomadic living.
DEBATE: Should You Take a Lot of Pictures While Traveling? A Debate Between Brent and Michael
Ah, this made me laugh long and hard. I also have a mix of opinions and agree with both of you to a certain extent. If I ask my main travel companion, my 11-year-old son, he would point to the Japanese cherry blossom incident. A few years ago in Kyoto, he had to place a ban on me taking any more cherry blossom pictures because it was really starting to interfere with his enjoyment of the day. Oops ...
My wife and I have a similar conflict. I tend toward Team Brent. Worrying about photos and framing and posing brings me out of the experience. I'll take a few photos, but I'm more likely to read the plaque and notice the statue without a camera than with.
My wife loves taking photos. I think the biggest contention for us is whether we should be in the photos or not. She loves posing for them and documenting her presence at a place. And she always wants me to, or at least asks me if I want to, pose in a photo. I don't feel the need to have photos of myself and feel that I'm less interesting than the thing I would capture in a photo.
The next biggest is how much time and attention should be spent on photography. I feel her photo urges favor preservation over presence.
We find a balance. I pose a bit. She often listens when I say it's too much.
But the tug of war persists.
My husband and I could've written this but slightly fuzzier lines of difference. I'm a photographer in my working life (babies not buildings) so although I love taking photos when we travel I try not to get too tripody/lensey/wanky about it because I don't want to feel like I'm working. Plus my husband is sooooo like Brent and just hates being in the photos. I find it frustrating because as I've always said, if you don't put someone you love in the photo you may as well have bought the postcard because someone has already taken a better photo of that "scenery/building/vista". I can often be found running along behind my husband with dslr in hand snapping and hoping I'm capturing something anything lol. I do now take a selfie stick (yes I said it, fight me) because I don't have very long arms and I like nice photos of us together in front of cool things we are seeing and unfortunately my husband doesn't have a an "eye" for anything except for picking the right woman. In my quest to keep it simple though I often come away disappointed with what I've captured. It's either not the right angle, not enough photos, not the right light, didn't bother to choose manual settings, etc etc etc and when I see other people's amazing photos eg. Michael's, I feel annoyed with myself for not taking that extra minute to capture something special. To be fair to my husband he is a fairly good sport. He knows not to touch his food before I've snapped a quick shot on my phone lest he lose a finger. Food is life in our world so I like to capture the food as a memory of amazing meals shared, not to share on the flappergram or the instaface, just for us. I've dragged that man to more Disney theme parks than he ever wanted to see, he follows along with my crazy travel schemes and rarely asks questions so I do try and limit how much time he has to spend in front of the camera. I do wish on occasion he would pay a little more attention when he is taking a photo of me though, it's a little disappointing when I craft an image that makes him look like a Greek God and meanwhile he captures a blurry shot of me with 3 chins, a nipple showing and muffin top for days. Well to be fair, he can't be expected to work miracles I guess.
Anyway, I think I'm team Michael for this debate but since I love old movies I'd like to give Brent a special mention for awesomeness.
I'll leave you with something that I believe to be 100% true.........Photos are our memories when our memories fade!!! Take the photo, then go back to being in the moment. That way you have both experiences xx
Hilarious! Also a really interesting question. We traveled a lot when I was a kid and my father was always an avid photographer. Still is! So, many of my childhood memories are of hanging around next to some monument while waiting for my dad to take twenty-hundred pictures. Fast forward to my own travels and I often feel I don't take enough photos. I think it's a matter of having to exit a moment to capture a photograph that sums up my feelings about being there. (Does that make sense?) I've traveled with my camera (of course I have a beautiful camera; my dad updates it for me every few years) and with just my phone, and when I do have my camera I do come away with beautiful photos that are a result of me looking for things to remember. So, as Michael mentioned with the statue of the bather, I see things I might not have seen otherwise. But I also sometimes feel that I'm not experiencing a location as only myself when I'm focused on photographing it. There is obviously a balance and sometimes I achieve it. A perfect day out and gorgeous pictures by which to remember it.
O M G. Full disclosure: not gay (but over 50). Wife of a man who takes photographs obsessively when we travel, but also almost exclusively of wildlife, so not only do I have to wait around for him to catch some (admittedly gorgeous) wading bird in just the right pose, but I have to ASK for the photo of the Hungarian parliament building bathed in moonlight (while he focuses on the birds flying around the spire - sheesh). And yet, he always seems to capture the memories that I want to save in our blog. This post made me laugh so hard that I was crying ugly Bette Davis tears. Thank you!!
OMG! We go through the exact same questions. My husband hates….absolutely hates…when I stop to take photos. He is always turning around and looking for me, while I am crunched up in some graffiti blanketed alley recording memories with my iPhone. During the pandemic, BV (before vaccination), I took an online IPhone Photography class to become a better photographer. I have received many compliments for my photography and I, too, believe it makes me a more perceptive traveler. One way I have brought my husband into my photographing life, instead of taking less photos, is for him to be my scout. He has a good eye, so he wanders ahead and looks for different angles, light, and interesting subjects to photograph. It works great for us. I love your posts. As always, thank you for your humor and unique approach to nomadic living.