Travel photos
My friend's mother has been throwing away photos that do not have people in them. But my own travel photos are usually just of scenery. I do not take many photos of people. I have been sorting through my latest travel photos. There are lots of beautiful scenes. I also took many photos of accessibility. I took shots of bathrooms, other rooms and entrances. Accessibility is important to me. The photos could also be useful to other people planning a trip. I wonder what you take travel photos for? And what do you do with them after your trip?
Posted by: Maureen Corrigan, on 24/11/11
Why do you take travel photos?
A friend was recently talking about her mother getting older. The mother was going through all the things in her house. I am only keeping photos of people,
she said. I thought that very interesting. She had travelled extensively. She had taken photos of beautiful scenes in every corner of the world. But she was throwing them out and only keeping photos of people. I realised most of my photos are scenes.
Another friend has just returned from visiting the United Kingdom. Most of the photos she showed us on return were of the people she had met. There were also plenty of photos of relatives she had caught up with. There were no mountains, lakes or waterfall shots. Then much younger friends showed us their overseas photos. Most of their shots were of themselves posed in various settings.
My own mother surrounds the inside of her home with large photos. The photos are beautiful scenes of places she visited, loved and likes to think of. She also has photos of her loved ones on shelves.
My photos
My travel photos contain mostly picturesque scenes. There are only a few shots of people we had met along the way. I had a few taken of myself in front of a significant spot, and also some of my travelling companions. But there were not many photos of people. Some shots of people were taken before I got to know them. Their presence in the photo was an accident.
I have been thinking about the photos we take while sorting through my latest travel photos. I took lots of beautiful scenes as usual. But I was amazed at the number of photos I took that show accessibility. There are photos of bathrooms, showers, toilets, rooms and front entrances. There were also photos of the bumpy footpaths where the drains went across them rather than underneath.
Motor vehicles also featured in lots of my recent photos. But they were not the spunky or sporty vehicles I looked at many years ago. They were of small vans or station wagons where there was plenty of room for transporting a scooter and other mobility aids. A lot of the vehicles I have not seen in Australia. There seemed to be a greater variety of choices. Then there are the photos of ramps, steps, lifts and whatever to get on and off all the forms of transport that I went on.
Why I take photos
All this has made me really think about what I take travel photos of and why. I also wonder what other people take photos for. And what do they do with them afterwards? One of my closest relatives is only interested in seeing the six best photos from a trip.
In the end, I suppose I take photos just for my own pleasure and perhaps to show some of the people in them. But the photos I took showing accessibility could be useful for people with a disability planning a trip to the same region.
What do you take travel photos of? And what happens to the photos afterwards? Let us know in the comments section below.
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