I’ve done a lot of traveling lately, probably more traveling in the last year than I’ve ever done in a year before. I’ve seen some really beautiful, miraculous things in wonderful places: like the Grand Canyon, the Pacific Coast Highway, Big Sur, Niagara Falls, and more. Amidst all that traveling, I’ve done lots of thinking about photos: what they’re really for, who they’re really for, what makes a good photo, why it’s probably a waste of time to aspire to have perfect photos, and why we still bother going to places we’ve seen photos. Anyway, here are some of those thoughts.

If you’ve already seen the pictures, why see it in person?  

Before I traveled to any of these places on my list from this year, I saw pictures online of them. Some of them could arguably be called “perfect” pictures, with just the right amount of the sun exposure from the perfect angle with the perfect glare, etc. Chances are, they caught the perfect moment in a way I probably won’t ever get to experience in person.

The thing is, I (and most travelers as a whole) still decided to go through all the work and hassle of actually going there for myself, to see with my own eyes what I saw in the photos. Why? Why do we do that?

The way I reason with that question is that it’s less about what’s in the photo, it’s less about the sight of that mountain or that canyon.

It’s more about the experience of being there–the sounds, the smells, the energy in that place. It’s about the adrenaline that runs through your body when you realize, there is no guardrail keeping you from falling into the Grand Canyon. It’s that moment when you realize, you’re about 3 feet away from a sure death. It’s looking at those hooks that are buried in the ground, the ones that no one takes pictures of, that they use to climb down and bring up someone who fell inside. Holy shit– things just got real. You don’t get that from the photo.

It’s about the sweat on your palms as you grip the steering wheel driving along the Pacific Coast Highway: battling between being in awe every moment and wanting to take in the scenery, while also knowing that if you get distracted for one second too long, you and your car will be tumbling hundreds of feet below into the Pacific Ocean. You wonder how many people that’s happened to before.

It's about the feeling of your ears popping when changing altitudes driving through the mountains. It’s about feeling the triple digit dry heat and noticing you’re wearing a jean jacket, cause it’s really not as bad as you thought. It’s about your hand feeling the wind out the window driving down the coast. It’s the glasses hurting your head cause you’re wearing them all day to beat the glare.

It’s about having a million options of what to do or where to turn next, and choosing which one to try. It’s knowing you could go back to the same place dozens of times, and you’ll never be able to have the same exact experience again. 

There’s something magical about that. We still travel because it’s not about the photo; It's about the feeling, the experience, the mark it leaves on us that we take with us when we come back home. 

Serendipitously getting lost and finding magical places

Beyond the experience of being in that place that you intended to go that beforehand you’d only seen pictures of, there’s also this really important element of everything else that’s not in the photo. For instance, the photo of that one cool spot on the Pacific Coast Highway is the effect, it’s the outcome, the “evidence” so to speak, of where you landed. But what the photo doesn't show is all the times that that outcome almost never happened. All those times you stumbled upon that place purely by accident, how that photo almost never had the opportunity to exist for you.

And with magical, surprise moments like that, it feels less like you went to a place and took a picture of it. It’s more like you created this journey for yourself– the map wasn’t planned out, and you didn't know where the winds would pull you. Because no trip will ever be exactly like that trip was.

It’s about an experience, it's about being in a place you’ve never been before and you don't know if you'll ever be again. 

Because when you’re there, it’s no longer a photo on your screen that you can take in at your leisure. Now, you’re passing through and there’s so much to see that you’ll never catch all of it. And if you don't keep your eyes open you’re going to miss something.

That excitement not knowing what you’re going to find but keeping your eyes open to look hard enough, to be open to whatever you find and not having a destination– that's why we travel.

Your friends will never get as excited about your photos as you are

So you’ll get back from your trip, high on life, so excited about what a great trip you had, and you’ll be excited to share your photos and memories with your friends. The thing is, they’re never going to be as excited as you are about them.

It’s partly because photos are already self-selecting. The fact that it’s a photo worth sharing means there’s something worth looking at, something special to pay attention to. However, there's a lot of sifting through ordinary moments that needs to happen in order to arrive at that photo. And while you’re sifting through those ordinary moments, you don’t realize that something magical is just around the corner.

It’s almost like going fishing. If it were always guaranteed that you’d catch a fish with every cast, it would defeat the purpose and the thrill of going fishing. Sometimes you might not catch anything, but on days when you do, it makes it mean that much more.

The magic of the first time

You will never be able to go back and recreate that same experience over for yourself again. Even if you stopped in all the same stops– there’d be a magic that was then missing, because the first time, you had no expectations of what you’d find. It left you open, eyes wide. Now, you’re a little more closed in, you’re looking for something specific, and might not notice as much else as you did before. 

That’s why tourists are the only ones who stare at the skyscrapers in New York; everyone else doesn’t see them anymore. Now they’re just a part of their landscape.

Whereas before, everything was in bright colors and noticeable shapes. It might never feel quite that real again after that first time.

The photo is just the signpost, so don’t worry about getting it perfect

It’s less about the picture, it's more about the experience it took to get that picture. The photo isn’t supposed to capture the experience. It’s meant to just be a flag, a reminder of what happened there, what memories are buried.

The photo doesn’t do the experience justice: it’s not supposed to. You could spend all day getting the perfect photo and it still wont tell the whole story. That’s why I’d much rather soak up the story, let you be the story. Let you be what's been forever changed from that moment.

So take the photos, and show them too. And tell the story, but just remember that you don't take it for them, you take it for you.

The “Perfect Photo”

I’m by no means a skilled photographer. There’s lots I don't know, and don’t care to know, about angles, lighting, exposure, law of thirds, and so on.

With that being said, I don’t waste much time trying to get the perfect picture. There's enough beautiful pictures out there from true photographers with much better camera equipment and expertise than I have. They’ll have the patience to wait out for the perfect moment, on the perfect day, to try the perfect angle, and so on.

I simply don’t have the time. So when I take photos, I don’t spend much time trying to get them perfect. I just try to get them good enough to be a signpost back to the memory of the experience for me.

Remember, your photo isn’t for your friends (since they’re not going to be as excited about it as you anyway). So if it’s for you, optimize it for you to remember the parts that you want to specifically remember, regardless of whether someone might objectively classify it as a “good” or “perfect” picture.

Ah, the magic of traveling. Here’s to much more of it in 2022.