I love to travel and I’m grateful to a job that includes travel in the form of attending conferences around the world. In fact, this is how I manage to see the world.
I also love to take photographs (my undergraduate degree is in film).
For me, the camera has always been a way of focusing in on details, of making sure that I really take in the sights. I’m not trying to be in the photos (aside from the odd selfie), or taking photos of other people, but instead I’m trying to capture the essence of being there. Through the lens and with a frame I capture a moment of existence in another space.
2006
At some point I started to share my travel photos online with others. In 2006, I went to Ukraine. I remember the great views of the Black Sea, the overnight train trip to Odessa (I had to! I had to see the Odessa steps), the grand buildings and gardens.
Below are four photos from that trip — one of architecture and sky, a self-portrait from an exhibit with “the mirror that remembers you,” the steps (the photo does not do them justice in this case) and some street art.
I shared my photos online, on Flickr, and also posted them to a blog. People were following along with me, reading my travelogue, giving travel and sight-seeing tips, and (hopefully) enjoying the photos. Some cool stuff happened along the way. I shared my photos broadly, and often tagged the location on Flickr. People asked to include my photos in digital travel books.
2026
Flash forward to 2026. Over the last 20 years, the tech has changed. I got an iPhone, then another, then another. I remember being ridiculed by someone around 2015 for still carrying a real camera with me. I had already stopped carrying the bigger camera most of the time because I become a mom, and my hands were busy trying to wrangle a kid while also taking photos. The phone really was easier, and took decent photos.
I also stopped posting so many photos online. I was no longer writing in that blog space, Facebook didn’t feel quite right for my endless stream of photos, I no longer had a paid Flickr account with a huge photo stream. I didn’t want to put it all out there on Instagram, either. My followers on there wouldn’t want to see all of that and … well, my privacy filters have changed over the years. As I considered followers/privacy together, it no longer felt worthwhile. And so I still take many photos — I have amazing ones from a trip to Iceland last spring, and yes, I saw the Northern Lights — but I share them in quieter ways. I made a photobook with some haiku that I wrote out of the Iceland photos and gave it to my husband for Christmas (the trip was for a milestone birthday).
Now my daughter is 17. We’re on a plane today, returning home from a trip to Poland (I attended a conference) and Berlin (the most logical place to fly from). Much to my surprise, she asked me to get out my old camera so she could take it on this trip. I handed over the FujiFilm Finepix HS20EXR (easier to handle than the Nikon D40 DSLR), got her a new SD card and she took photos! I opted to stick with the iPhone camera, in part because I have a sprained ankle and I’m walking around with a cane.
My photography role on this trip was meta-photographer. I took photos of the photographer, and I watched her share the things she was seeing and experiencing on Instagram with her friends. She even told me that she felt so much more engaged on the trip and so much less likely to be on her phone.
It felt like a full circle moment, but also as I saw her making careful decisions about framing I found myself yearning to do the same. I’ve missed taking (and sharing) the photos.
In a few weeks, she and I will visit South Korea for the Festival of Learning (3 conferences packed into one). She said I should definitely bring my camera, and so I will. Maybe it’s even time to upgrade?
And maybe i should be social with a few of my photos ... so if you see some random sights on my class Instagram account, know that I'm just sharing a bit of what I've seen out in the real world lately.
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