A colorful sunset over Logan, Utah, with the Logan Utah Temple rising in the distance.
There seems to be a lot of love and affection given to the various social medias these days, and to be honest, I’m just as guilty as the next guy. My issue, however, is how much credit we’re giving to something we cannot control. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the others, are all running on a set of algorithms to show you what they think you want to see.
That all being said, I travel for work quite a bit and the odd thing is I absolutely hate being in my hotel room. Maybe if was the type of person would could curl up with a book, or if could turn the television on and get engrossed in whatever was on, I’d enjoy it more. But that’s not me.
So, I head to the hotel bar.
After a few hours, a handful of beverages, and a bunch of money later, I’m finally ready to face my hotel room. Obviously this is not a sustainable routine.
I started bringing my camera along on my work trips. I’ll locations in the few days prior to my travel, and once I land in whatever city it may be, I ditch my non-essentials in the hotel room and grab the camera and tripod and off I go to explore.
Most of the time, I can easily find fun things to take pictures of. It may be that I just set out to wander an area to see what turns up. Or, maybe I head to a specific spot to take pictures of something particular. Either way, it gets me out of my hotel room.
By the time I finally get back to my hotel room my camera’s memory card is full of pictures, I’m exhausted from the day of exploring, and when I finally get to the hotel I more-often-than-not just want to process the images from that day’s adventure. Maybe I’ll go through the pictures with a glass of wine, maybe a bottle of water, or possibly nothing at all. Either way, I’ve found is a very nice way to get out and explore, while staying somewhat out of trouble.
Amusingly, I work with a number of television monitors and started to put one of my images from the town we’re in into the unused monitors at the office. One day we were in a random city and I had found a scenic place to take some pictures at sunset. My manager walked by the next day, stared at the monitor a bit, then turned to me and said “I’m glad you go out and take these pictures. I feel like I get out and explore wherever we are a little bit.”
Its comments like that I appreciate more than any number of “likes” or “follows” on social media. In a fraction of a second users of Instagram decided whether to “like” an image and move on, but improving somebody’s weekend? That’s something I can take great joy in.
1119. (2005)
