Well, technically some photos here have people in them, but I guess it’s not mainly about the people. They may be in the picture, but they don’t have the leading role, so to speak.
When we joined Lakbay Litratista Laguna, I distinctly remember telling myself that I should remember to take pictures of both people and non-humans (non-living things and other life forms).
I’m more at home with this aspect of travel photography because you don’t need to ask permission when it comes to shooting objects or animals or plants. At the very least you do a tabi-tabi po.
It’s like training your eye to find something worth capturing wherever you may be. Sometimes the whole place looks really sucky, but if you look hard enough, sometimes in the most unlikely places, you might find something pleasing in the midst of yuckiness.
Sometimes, you even find objects on humans that you find fascinating:
Or sometimes it’s one dark corner in a rundown shack that speaks a silent elegance.
It’s a nice exercise: to find beauty in places where you don’t expect to find it. If I could only apply this outside of photography and into my everyday life, I’d be a happier camper. Because mostly I find a lot of ugliness wherever I go.
Also, photography satisfies the voyeur in me. Especially when you use zoom lenses to catch something from afar. Not so much for puerile purposes, but more of to capture scenes without tainting it with self-consciousness, which pours in bucketloads once subjects realize they’re being photographed.
We’re planning our next photo trip. I hope it’s somewhere challenging, a place that will give up it’s secret treasures with some patient prodding. Travel photography is exhausting, but I guess we do it again again because of how rewarding it all feels after you see your photos. I guess it’s like what mothers go through when giving birth. In the end, the pain is all worth it.
