Traveling and photography do not necessarily go as well together as most think. I mean, when I first started getting excited and serious about photography, being a globe-trotting photographer was my dream. It many ways it still is. But the reality is a lot more complex. What I mean, and this strikes me pretty much every time I go somewhere farther than a day's drive, is that photographing new places is really difficult. Mainly just because you do not know the area. It is sort of like meeting someone for the very first time, not knowing anything about them, then being stuck next to them during dinner, the two of you awkwardly stumbling across topics trying to find some common ground. Sometimes you hit it right off and the evening is a breeze. Sometimes you find a mutual interest half way through the night, and sometimes you spend the whole evening hoping the babysitter will call and deliver you from your social nightmare. Travel photography is not nearly as dramatic as that. Or rather, it can be, just in entirely different ways.

The comparison I am trying to make is that it can be daunting and awkward being introduced to an entirely new place and trying to get to know it intimately enough to photograph it well enough, all within what is usually about a week's time.

This strikes me when I come home and spend the following evening under a certain bridge, or traveling out to the Gorge; to the places I know like the back of my hand. It is weird, because there are aspects I so like and dislike about traveling abroad. I love the energy of learning a new area and experiencing new sights. I really dislike the feeling of flitting in, snap snap snapping over a few days and flitting out. I don't want to just hit the high points, because while I may get some beautiful photos, I don't ever really feel like I got more than an introduction to a place. And then I think about the St Johns Bridge and how well I have gotten to know it, and how much more meaningful the photography becomes for me. Yet at the same time, that familiarity itself is a bit vexing as the explorer in me wants to do more than discover new perspectives of familiar locales.

I know, it is a bit of a circular argument. But one that strikes me every time I spend a week or so in another part of the world. If only I were rich enough to just move to a new place every year or two and just live there. Seeing it day in and day out. Enjoying the rainy days as well as the sunny ones. Being able to experience a place not only at its most beautiful, but those times that it is not as well. Finding all the nooks and crannies and less explored corners of that part of the world. Learning its secrets, and so on.

But that is another dream, for another day.

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