Having just returned from ten days backpacking through Scandinavia, I can tell you that traveling in the far north is just about the easiest experience in Europe. Everyone speaks perfect English, the food is doggone tasty, and the beautiful blonde-haired and blue-eyed populace make for fantastic people-watching on a Friday afternoon.
In fact, the biggest challenge I faced during the trip originated not from the land of the Vikings, but from a devilish device that I proudly own along with every Chinese tourist on the planet: a camera.
This April, I found myself handing over my credit card at the Cambridgeside Galleria Best Buy, the proud new owner of a Canon520A digital camera. I couldn't very well go to Switzerland for a year with my childhood black box that ran off of 100 speed film - this toy would definitely not just point and click, not for the weeks of wages that it cost.
The engineer's daughter in me quickly dog-eared the manual while the artist ran to Barnes and Noble to buy a book about proper lighting and filter techniques. I thus arrived in Geneva newly knowledgeable about aperture and exposure, and ready to seize all possible photos ops at every European cathedral, mountain and castle.
Furthermore, I promised myself I would not become one of those silly point-and-click photo safarians. Inspired by the glossy pages of National Geographic Traveler, I determined that I would take artistic and meaningful photographs chronicling the essence of Europe, from the hubbub of the morning commute in downtown to the quintessential French grandm??? deftly negotiating at the Saturday outdoor market. Whipping out my Canon would not be a statement of my American consumerism; it would be an expression of my artistic conscience and my journalistic attention to the visual landscape of foreign cultures.
As I tramped from chateau to chateau (all within one hour of Geneva), my camera occupied its trusty new place of honor in my oh-so-Euro H&M bag. Regarding my world with my newly-developed photographer's eye, I watched for those great moments of travel photography: the exchanged kisses in the street, the train car winding through vineyards. Everything around me seemed ripe for digital capture, from the sparkling blue skies to the soft light of late afternoon.
But what I had forgotten about in my newfound artistic project was that niggling conscience that I had grown as a child traveler: the desire to blend in. Few things bother me more than appearing as a foreigner in a foreign land, and pulling out a camera is the surest way to give yourself away to every person around you, who is undoubtedly a local and definitely watching you.
My hands kept reaching for the camera while my brain kept screaming, "No! You'll look like a tourist!" But honestly, what's wrong with taking a picture? Besides, I was different: I was taking these photos for art, for journalism, and even for relationships, posting the photos on Webshots so I could share my experiences with friends and family whom I love and want to include in my life. Pulling out a camera did not necessarily have to be a blinking sign of my American citizenship, or my insensitivity to local culture as a bumbling tourist.
Yet last week as I sped across Norway through snow and autumn leaves, playing with my sepia filter and ISO speed, I still felt like a total fraud. There I was traveling through some of the world's most beautiful outdoor scenery on an antique railway, and all I could think of was how to best position the camera on the window to facilitate the maximum exposure. While my travel partner Amy stared out the window fish-faced, her cheap $30 Kodak dangling from her purse strap, I clutched my expensive toy and tried to see the world through focus frames and lighting angles. What the hell was I doing?
Thirty minutes later, the conductor stopped the train for a photo op at a giant mountain waterfall. Outfitted in anoraks and souvenir gloves, the passengers poured out and immediately positioned themselves against the guardrail to pose for pictures. Mandarin and American English bounced off the mountainside.
Turning my head, I noticed a competent-looking woman in her 30s carrying a large Nikon, a sturdy tripod, and a small black tarp, walking briskly toward the corner of the platform. Crouching on the deck, she regarded the scene through her lens with a serene expression. As I stepped closer, I heard the elegant click of her shutter as it captured thousands of tiny water droplets suspended in the cold mountain air.
I jerked my head up to check that I was seeing the same scene. Yes, my skin felt the cold spray and my ears heard the water's roar. But my eye, the ultimate piece of technology, could not perceive her camera's image of the suspended crystal drops and the blurred veil of the falls.
A big sense of relief overcame me as I realized I had finally found my very own version of the National Geographic Traveler photographer: a woman who captured her travels uninhibitedly through her lens and who created images that went beyond what her eye could possibly see. Travel photography could still be something valuable, something artistic, and something that actually contributed to the experience instead of detracting from it.
As the photographer carefully packed up her lenses and tripod, I looked down happily at my petite Canon resting unassumingly in its square black case. The train's whistle blew and I walked toward the car, rested the camera on the window, and set a new exposure. I was ready for Europe and all its beautiful sights - me, my camera, and I.
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