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The Adamant Guide
For me, going on an organized all inclusive resort is not traveling. At best, it’s all a relaxation, food and alcoholic consumption adventure that characterizes what it’s like being on a cruise ship, unless you choose to participate in other more life changing experiences.
Travel is more than just going to a destination. If that were the case, can you imagine running errands as as a form of saying that you traveled? But then again, travel can mean different things to everyone.
In my eyes, travel is about going on journeys to experience new things, people, and places. It’s about gaining insights into new cultures, trying local food and leaving the place with some knowledge of the rhythm of local life and cross-examining their circumstances with yours and feeling a sense of transformation inside because of it.
Booking the Alternatives
During our Carnival vacation, at every port we docked, there was little escape from local tour guides trying to coax us to take part in one of their many private excursions to tour the island. The best you can do with that many people talking to you is to politely voice your disinterest and walk away.
While in St.Kitts, I recall saying to one guide that kept flashing his brochure to us, “We’re just going to walk around instead but thank you for the offer” and to that he replied, “You can walk around all day but nothing of what you see will mean anything if there’s no story behind it”.
What bothered me about the statement was that he was right. Generally speaking, tour guides are expected to know a city intimately and offer guests interpretive information such as history and anecdotes on all sites and after some haggling, we were fortunate to book one that offered us all that plus more.
Minor showers were experienced as we toured the island of St.Kitts.At $25 a person for a 3hrs tour, he was adamant in not being paid until we were brought back to the ship and at that point I sensed his commitment to his profession and not because he marketed himself as “being the best” of what he did but because he wanted to focus on what the tour offered and not on how much it would cost.
All the islands we visited, tourism contributed as the number one source of revenue to the economy, second to coffee and bananas and 85% of workforce depended largely on these cruise ships to unload hundreds of eager tourist ready to spend money.
All 6 of us getting back into the van to continue the tour. No need to wait for other couples.We did spend a fair amount of it on tours, food and souvenirs but the adventures that were intertwined amongst all of it was memorable. Tourism is almost identical to any other business, like music or magazines. There’s something more formatted and unsurprising to please the majority, and there’s an alternative to please the minority and sometimes, it’s the former that will make more of an impression on you.
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From the Balcony- Land based vacations are enjoyable, but you don’t have the opportunity to wake up in your hotel room at a different island each day. You don’t have the option of frolicking on a new beach, or learning a different culture.
On a cruise, every day brings new experiences including the possibility of being out in the open sea to catch the perfect sunset before going out to dine in the same place you’re living for at least a week. (Photograph by Jorge Quinteros)
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All across Barbados you will find this mischievous little creature including in people’s gardens. It’s called a Green Monkey and this particular one, a vendor had it tied near his shack and was asking for a donation if you chose to photograph it.
Having a telephoto lens to capture the photo was pivotal because the monkey jumped insanely when you tiptoed too close although feeding him was a sure way to keep him in place.
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Geographically Meaningful Photos
It took Mike Matas’ stunning website with Google Map integration to ultimately convince me to purchase new gear for the D90 which I had initial reservations on picking up because I was unsure of how much use it would get when traveling was nowhere in sight.
I’m a huge metadata freak. I’m very meticulous in applying tags, description and appropriate titles to each photo in Lightroom before uploading to Flickr but one field I often neglected was the Location Field which is where you would insert GPS-derived info(longitude and latitude coordinates). Luckily now I have the Solmeta N2 to automatically embed all that data goodness directly into each shot taken.
Broken Down: Geotaged photograph from Mike Matas’ travels through India.Last few days prior to vacation have been hectic so I’ve managed to only squeeze very few photos with the N2 attached but the one underlining feature of the device I admire already is its internal 10hr-lasting battery and the option for it to use the camera battery as a backup source. I planning for a more thorough review on the device once I put more use to it during our upcoming trip.
Why would you care for all this data you ask? Well, if you’re the kind of traveler who believes getting there is half the fun, geotagging your photos is just another excuse you need to explore places that you might not otherwise think to visit especially in knowing that you’ll be able to acquire the exact position of where each photo was taken.
To me the photos will become more geographically meaningful. Content will no longer just be about “what”, but “where”. It’s part of human nature to want to know more about things that interest you and now more than ever there’s a strong move towards utilizing that mentality at the social level.
Regardless of the type of privacy issues that can be brought up with this type of transparency, I think today’s culture lends itself to a new form of exhibitionism that has changed the way we interact with others. The massive popularity of Twitter itself is the perfect example of how much we relish sharing information about ourselves with others.
At times on Flickr, it’s not enough for me to be fulfilled reading the caption of where a photo was taken but with it comes this innate inquisitiveness of wanting to knowing where specifically and not because I want replicate the shot but because I’m more mesmerized that sharing this type of detailed information is possible.
With the few geotagged photos I dumped into the iPad, it’s incredible sharing them with friends and seeing a beautifully displayed map of where each photo was taken. I’ve mentioned a couple geotagging options in the past but this will be by far the most entertaining.
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Waiting to Board - Airports have always been inherently boring in nature. No one cares to enjoy their design or architectural surroundings because the travel destination is more important for us but even if people care to admire, they’re likely hesitated to act upon their urge to photograph it because of fear of being approached by security.
I’ve always had some serious reservations of my own on this and on being seen as the guy photographing mundane settings but the temptation of being drawn to interesting lighting and objects is too great and I was missing shots and not reacting.
While waiting to board our flight from Miami to New York coming back from a cruise vacation, I sat closest to the window and photographed our plane with the Nikon 10.5mm Fisheye lens and was content with at least one of these furtive shots.
On a sidenote, I’ve gain a new perspective on airports ever since reading Alain de Botton’s book perfectly entitled A Week at the Airport. Being a photographer makes you more observant but when you read a book about observing, taking notice of overlooked detail of a place can drive you crazy. (Photograph by Jorge Quinteros)
