I think you’ve got it right. Life is fleeting and we need to take as many pictures of it as possible. The world is your moving sidewalk and every two feet is another opportunity. When traveling with my father he’s always snapping a picture or pulling out the video camera to capture a series of moments.

The vacation videos always start out the same. You’re oblivious, oh wait there’s the camera, “hello camera”, “how are you today camera?” By the third set change it’s, “good bye camera, go away”. Filming and taking pictures was never about immediate gratification. Before the invention of digital storage media people actually had to get things “developed”. But how wonderful was it when you all huddled around the family album or sat down with your TV dinner to watch the reel from the last trip? I suppose things were just more precious then.

Being the documenter on a trip is about sacrifice. You sacrifice the enjoyment of the moment so that the experience can be enjoyed later on by more than just you. It is a really altruistic endeavor. (Maybe not saving a baby seal but it’s up there).

I never loved being in front of the camera. As a child I felt self conscious - I still do. When my father would take a picture I’d feel like I had to perform. What could I do at that moment that was worthy of all of that trouble? I know that at the time I might have been a brat but looking back I cherish the pictures of my youth. To think that was the way that I was. There I am standing with Micky, there I am again in my ugly 80’s snow suit loving life, oh and there I am again trying too hard to be cool.

Yes it’s bothersome when you’re in the moment though capturing images is a way of immortalizing what happened. “I REALLY DID MEET MOBY, SEE HERE!” It’s probably just my myopic view on the world teasing me again. Documentation is just another part of the process of travel. It wouldn’t be a family vacation without a snapshot or two of the awkward family together at last.

Yesterday was the last day of my class. It was the last time that I would see all of my students together as one big family so I decided to do something different. Instead of lecturing I wanted to immortalize the “feeling”. So we went to the park and snapped a few pictures (622 to be exact). I put it all together into a video which you can watch by clicking the link below.

VIDEO: Class is Finished

I figure that taking a lot of pictures isn’t a bad thing. Maybe when we wipe ourselves off the face of the Earth and the aliens come they’ll find all of my pictures. They’ll assume that I was an important person, surely no one could be that vain, and track down my DNA and I’ll get cloned.