Travel photography: escaping the tyranny of the camera

Not only does photography interrupt the emotional experience of discovering something exciting and new, it
can also ruin the moment for others, says Nick Trend.
A How much do you rely on photographs to remember your holiday? I have always been very bad at
taking them. For years I travelled without a camera, and I now have one only because it is part of my
phone. Our family holidays are well documented because others took photographs, but I have virtually no
pictures from the many trips I have undertaken on my own. Do I miss anything as a result? Certainly, I'm
very glad, through the efforts of others, to have pictures of my children growing up, of tanned, happy faces
and bright sunlit beaches. And I still enjoy occasionally going through them and relishing the memories. But,
even though I have very few photographs of the places I have visited, I don't feel that I am missing much. I
may be completely wrong about this (how could it ever be tested?) but my theory is that we remember
things better if we haven't interrupted or compromised the experience by taking a photograph of it.
B Here's one example. In 1990, when I went on safari to Kenya and Tanzania for the first time, what
amazed and delighted me was how incredibly close we could get to the wildlife. I have vivid memories of
stopping on a track while three lionesses padded past in the cold half-light just before dawn. I can picture
the dew on the long grasses, I can feel the lingering chill of the African night. I can still visualize the flicking
tail of the last lioness as she passed the minibus. And I can remember the incessant clicks and the
motorized whirrs as the other tourists desperately tried to capture the moment for posterity. Did they see
what I saw? I don't think so. How can you look properly if you are either squinting through a lens or always
thinking of the next picture?
C It seems I am not alone in this feeling. Recently travel writer Paul Theroux was asked about
photography. 'I never bring a camera because taking pictures, I've found, makes me less observant and
interferes with my memory, though I realize this is not the case with everyone,' he said. Not only do they
make the tourist-photographers less observant, but they can also spoil things for bystanders. I remember
visiting the Taj Mahal some years ago. Not only did most visitors appear to be experiencing the site through
a viewfinder, but they expected those of us who were not to be continually on our guard to make sure that
we weren't getting in the way of their picture. Meanwhile, it is bad enough when Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre, in London, is dazzled by photographic flashes before the production starts, but the attendants have
to be on their guard to intervene when members of the audience reach slyly for their cameras to take
pictures during the play itself.
D Of course, I have to concede that the photographers have a better formal record. They can have
confidence in their images and videos. They know what they saw or, at least, they know what they
photographed. My memory might be playing tricks. Perhaps there were four lionesses. Maybe the flicking
tail has been subconsciously elided with a memory of another occasion on the same trip. I can't be certain.
Does that really matter? Maybe the photographers' memories are also playing tricks on them. It's easy to
think of photographs as an aide-mmoire, but do you remember taking each of them? I certainly don't.
Many are capturing moments I have forgotten. I recognize the scene and the people, of course, but I'm not
sure I really remember experiencing the moment itself.

E I think photography stops you looking properly, and interrupts the emotional experience of seeing new
and exciting things. The syndrome has been intensified by digital cameras. Now you don't even look
through a lens at your subject; you look at an electronic display screen. And when you have taken your
picture, you have to keep looking at that screen to make sure the image has captured the memory in an
acceptable way. Perhaps Sanjiv had his eyes closed at a crucial moment in front of the Taj Mahal. If he did,
the whole process has to start again. As for video cameras, they are even more problematical. Do you
watch your daughter's first slalom race at the end of the ski holiday with your own eyes, or look at it through
a lens? Many parents do the latter. The daughter does well, and she gets a nice film of herself as well as an
uninterrupted memory of winning/losing/falling over. But the photographer parent has missed the magic of
the moment.

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being unable to recall something that is shown in a photograph
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a feeling of dissatisfaction with what is contained in a photograph
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people taking photographs when they know they should not do so
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a doubt about how accurate certain recollections are
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pleasure gained from looking at photographs some time after they were taken
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the impossibility of knowing for sure whether a belief about photography is correct or not
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an acknowledgement that a personal experience of photography is not a universal one
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a contrast between the person experiencing something and the person photographing them while they do
so
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a feeling of panic while trying to take a photograph
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being able to recall exact details of an experience without the use of photographs