You’ve all seen the articles before, claiming Instagram is taking away holiday memories, that Snapchat stops you from lingering in the moment, that in the quest for the perfect photo for Facebook, you forget to sit up and look around.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous. For one, a holiday is a holiday. You should be able to share it with friends, to take it with you and send it to people who could not be there. And, if what makes you happy is sitting on a far off beach on your phone, who has the right to take that away from you? Other people’s perfect holidays should not be incumbent on how you spend yours.
And yet the claim still arises: you see less of the world from the lens of your camera. In my experience, I see more. Finding the perfect picture, for me, means a willingness to trek kilometres, to scale mountains and traipse backstreets. I’ve hiked up ocean-side cliffs to get a photo from the rocky crags at the top. I’ve explored ever street in Venice looking for the perfect place to pose with gondolas. I walked around in the freezing cold in Prague for hours taking pictures of the snow-capped buildings. I dragged my friends across Amsterdam at breakneck pace to find that massive Hollywood style “I AMsterdam” sign. Without my dedication to getting that photo, we never would have gone ice-skating in the open air in front of the Rijksmuseum.
I’m sure my holidays would have been filled with other memories had I stayed on the beach next to the cliffs, or called it a day in Venice, or just thrown “being cold in Prague for photos” into the “too hard” bucket. I’m sure I would have other stories to tell. But I’m just not sure that they’d be so monumental. My photos from across the world become my diary of each day I’ve spent travelling. My Snapchats that I’ve sent and received chronicle the mundane moments of being in places that are anything but mundane. If I wasn’t on a quest for photos of these places, I’m just not sure I would have seen as much of them.
And perhaps that’s only my motivation. Perhaps it’s enough to be inspired, to walk across a city and just see everything. But to me, I bring half of my experiences back with me, and nothing beats the rush of seeing a photo from somewhere I’d been, and remembering the incredible experience that went with it.
Morgaine Auton 