The other day I scanned some old film negatives of a trip I took to Italy in spring 2000. It was the first trip of many that followed as I fell in love with the beauty of the country.
Looking at the pictures I wondered: What mattered to me than and what matters to me now.
Most of them were touristic shots, Simple representations of the Piazza di San Marco in Venice for example. But some went beyond that. In the top of the Torre di San Marco there was a phone booth and I wondered who would like to make a call up there? (That was long before everybody had a cell phone).
Ansel Adams once said: “Don’t photograph what you see, photograph what you feel.”
What I love so much about traveling is that being on the road opens up our senses and makes us much more mindful and self-aware.
Because we are not in our usual environment, we perceive so many more things.
Things that seams to be normal to the locals feels odd, strange and quirky to us.
And when I have a camera with me I want to capture that feeling and record what resonates within me.
“What is essential is invisible to the eye” is a quote from the book “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Taking pictures allows us to see with the heart everyday and notice what is going on around us and who we are.