"On track through Mongolia"

Dec. 9

I’d rather write the thousand words than take the pictures. That puts me on the slow, less accessible side of the descriptive media spectrum. On the other side, fast and intense, is photography and videography.

To me, there’s something too conspicuous about travelling as a photographer – pixel bazooka hanging around your neck. You walk around, scanning for subjects, snapping away, and immediately label yourself as an outsider. I already feel foreign enough most of the time. As a traveler, I also find it odd to appear somewhere, camera blazing, without first getting a sense of the surroundings. I see lots of tourists doing that, and wonder if they’ll remember anything about the place beyond the snapshot. And some really compelling photos, strangers’ faces for example, can require cheap, grinning intrusions that I can’t bring myself to make.

This is not an attack on the art of photography. Done well, it makes you feel emotions that can attract you to a place, or repel you. With my small Panasonic, I’ve been taking plenty of pictures, some good. But for me picture taking is a chore, an after-thought. I sure wish I had camera-loving friends along to take better images for my blog (I can think of many who would do it well).

I spend my entire days observing, thinking not just about what I’m seeing, but about how my other senses are engaged. I try to remember it all, take notes, think up a good opening line, and write the day’s post. If it works out, I’ve got a good pic to go with it. Writing’s the cake. Photography’s the icing.